I used to use cigarettes to indicate somebody's an outsider a lot. It gave character a seedy, disreputable, almost suicidal quality. Now cigarettes are so unused - - you can't have anybody indoors smoking. If you drew that in a restaurant, you'd have to have a panel where the manager comes over and kicks them out. Unless it's set in Europe, you can't really do that. Characters who smoke - - it dates comics, somehow.

I originally just wanted to be an artist.

I had no television when I was little, just a stack of old, beat-up comics from the 1950s and 1960s.

Before I could read, I remember trying to piece together the stories from the images. It was a very primal experience.

I never know if a book is crazy or not. There's that fear - this is the one that will end it all.

I feel like I understood the language of comics. I had a real fluidity with that medium at a very early age.

I try personally not to be nostalgic.