The satiric ethos of Mad was a much bigger childhood influence.

Well, I'm always working on my comic strip and trying to, you know, keep cranking that out.

It certainly was an important moment for me, that realization that I was not going to get what I wanted. It was very freeing. I keep using that word "freeing" or "liberating." I feel like Houdini sometimes, like I'm just getting out of one set of shackles after another, hanging upside down inside a burlap bag with handcuffs on. Hopefully one day, I'm going to get out of this tank of water.

I love Jules Feiffer. I didn't discover him until I was a little older.

Was Daedalus really stricken with grief when Icarus fell into the sea? Or just disappointed by the design failure

It's our very capacity for self-consciousness that makes us self-destructive!

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.