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.

I do sometimes miss doing that lighter, more humorous work, and I find there's a heavier responsibility that goes along with a literary reputation. You have to start knowing what you're talking about and you have to go have public conversations with writers. That's been pretty intense; I have to really stay on top of things in a way I didn't before.

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

I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to comics history.

Drawing is more fun to me than writing. I think it's interesting to talk to different cartoonists about how those activities work for them. I'm a very writerly cartoonist. I certainly spend more time on the writing than I do on the drawing, even though the drawing, of course, is very time-consuming.

I still found literary criticism to be a suspect activity

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