If you're miserable and someone flies by looking like they have everything in the whole world and it's never going to be you, that's tough to deal with.

Write. Write every day. Write honestly. Write something that doesn’t exist, and you wish did. Read. Learn. Study. Watch people. Listen to what they say, listen to how they say it and listen to what they do not say. Surprise yourself. Scare yourself.

This is something I learned when I was working at a newspaper: when you put something on paper, whether it's words or pictures, and it's staring back at the reader, they are now alone in the room with them for as long as it takes them to turn the page. Whereas on television, the images fly by.

The only damn thing I ever learned in all my years in art school was a piece is never done, it is just finished. You have to trust your inner voice, your instincts, when they tell you pencils down. And you roll up your sleeves and you start over again.

I was into comics because these were my real male role models, even though at the time, I didn't know it.

And I had worked at the comic-book store almost by accident, because I was deciding to make a living as an artist, be it as an art tutor or illustrator, and that's how I wanted to make my living.

You can't just have a fight scene. In my opinion, it has to be a character moment or story moment.