Comic strip is almost like music on a page that you perform in your mind. It's not just pictures. There's a particular rhythm and structure to it that is unlike anything else. It literally is like music. You hear it in your mind as you read it.

The thing I don't understand is why so often one hears discussion of the fruits of human labor as if it's all the creation of some alien race.

I do worry that beginning cartoonists could feel somewhat strangled by the increasing critical seriousness comics has received of late and feel, like younger writers, that they have to have something to "say" before they set pen to paper. Many cartoonists feel even more passionate about this idea than I do, vehemently insisting that comics are inherently "non-art" and poop humor or whatever it is they think it is, but that attitude is a little like insisting that all modern writing should always take the form of The Canterbury Tales.

I have a preponderance to look smug in photos; something to do with the way my mouth turns up at the corners.

My mother was always encouraging about my wanting to be an artist.

My grandmother was an unparalleled storyteller who gave me a preview of how life might turn out, and also fortified my empathy.

Comics is different than writing because when you draw something you are trying to visualize it and you are trying to put yourself in that space. And when you're drawing something, all sorts of associations come up in my mind that I never would have thought of otherwise.