I might be at a point where I don't want to go with a genre convention but I have to produce some pages. It's hard work. And it requires you learn certain skills.

There is very little sense that anybody really knows what works or why. But that's not a shock. And I don't think market research would solve that.

One of the great things about being involved with comics is that those people are devoted to their characters, writers and artists. The average comic reader isn't casual about their habit.

The violence for me is never meant to be entertaining. It's meant to hurt the characters and I'm trying to show the impact it is having on the people involved with it. If there is cathartic violence at the end, then it costs the protagonist something. It's not just a blaze-of-glory moment.

Once we understand how they think, we can predict their behaviour. And once we predict it well, we can manipulate it. That is diplomacy.

Writing is an art but also a craft, which means it's a job. I don't teach. This is how the groceries get on the table. You sometimes make creative sacrifices to get the job done. All that said, I'm looking forward to getting out of the two-book-a-year schedule I'm on and to getting some self-indulgence going.

I might be at a point where I don't want to go with a genre convention but I have to produce some pages. It's hard work. And it requires you learn certain skills.