It's not an accident that, while bookstores are all in a tizzy, one of the more lively and alive sections is the so-called "graphic novel" section, because those are harder to replace.

Sometimes I'm drawing onto a computer directly, sometimes I'm drawing on paper , so I can't really talk about drafts. It's just like having soft clay until it hardens. At least as much of the problem has to do with the decisions of what to represent, how to represent that, and how to reduce it down. The words in the balloons aren't particularly poetic necessarily, but it has the same problem as poetry, which is that one has to do great reduction. And if I tried to draw everything, you'd just have a tangled mess of a picture. The stripping down takes much longer than building up.

Style is a capitalist invention. It's a trademark. It's very useful in the world of commerce to have a good trademark, but it wasn't my first concern. I got restless

I always had more allergies toward the superhero comics than the others. I thought those were aimed more toward the people who would beat me up.

To die, it's easy. But you have to struggle for life.

With any work worth its salt, you have to trust the author enough to take its measure. And if you apply too many preconceptions, you are not taking its measure.

The book has very specific qualities. Let's say in 2300 they discover the physical book, after having lived with the digital book for several hundred years. They'll be able to say, "Look at all the cool stuff you can have in a real book and how different it is." The differences are manifold.