There's a rhythm to the words combined with the pictures [in a comic]. Whenever I'm working on a comic strip I re-read it, probably hundreds of times through to pay attention to how all of those things work. Sometimes even changing the angle of a character's eyebrow can really, seriously alter the effect and overall interpretation of a scene. And the insertion of a pause or a cough or a sniff, and all these things that we do in conversation, can bring it to life in a strange way.

I guess we all make choices as to how we want to live, right?

Cartooning is an artistic commitment that requires the full attention and passion of the artist on every level; one should not get into it if one expects to do anything more than produce a book or a story that is exactly as one wants it to be.

As children, as we learn what things are, we are slowly learning to dismiss them visually. As adults, entirely submerged in words and concepts, we spend almost all of our time thinking and worrying about the past and the future, hardly ever looking at or engaging with the world visually.

Well, there are better cartoonists now than there ever have been. I firmly believe that. There's some amazing work being done.

A comic is a way of literally experiencing someone else's vision with a purity that I don't think any other medium offers; there are no technical, electronic or financial limitations; one only has to work harder to improve. Lately I think a new attitude has prevailed that comics aren't inherently an Art form, but that some cartoonists are genuinely artists.

Comics are not a genre, but a developing language.