Fantasy/science-fiction stories have been around almost as long as each genre, but every hybrid now lives in the shadow of 'Star Wars.'

I know I'm a grumpy old man, but I'm always more delighted by readers talking about the actual comics than people talking about how eager they are to have their favorite comics be "elevated" into another medium. Adaptations are great, but for me, comics have always been the destination, not a stepping-stone to get somewhere else.

Some people are haunted by their pasts, but not my family. I mean, how can you be haunted by something that never really dies?

In film, you have the luxury of accomplishing what you need in 24 frames every second. Comics, you only have five or six panels a page to do that.

I realized that for fantasy and science fiction, especially from my youth, white was the default. Luke Skywalker was in the lead, or even if you were a hobbit, you're going to be white. That was an extremely old-fashioned, obviously really narrow-minded way to look at things.

I've been fortunate enough to travel to comic conventions in Portugal, France, Canada, and it's an honor to get to meet people from all over the world.

It was interesting looking back at the '80s and trying to find newspaper headlines from the time - the cliché of history repeating itself.