When I go back and reread the stuff, I'm always floored by how deeply personal and revealing it actually is.

I was a very fearful little kid, and I would always see the worst in everything. The glass was half-empty. I would see people kissing, and I would think one was trying to bite the other.

I just try to make comics for myself, try to give it some kind of unity throughout. That often involves tiny details. I'm never sure what's going to be obvious or what nobody will ever notice. I put stuff in my comics that I thought was blatantly obvious, and nobody noticed. And things that I think are buried in the background, everybody gets it. So I try to be consistently aware of every part of the frame.

I must have been 3 years old or less, and I remember paging through these comics, trying to figure out the stories. I couldn't read the words, so I made up my own stories.

Often I'll do research just to get a time period correct, but I didn't have to for the '70s... I feel like I can close my eyes and still see it so clearly.

I try to only work on the screenplays for a few hours a day when I'm in my most voluble mood, just sort of writing whatever comes into my head. It's a very freeing thing.

I think that gulf is what makes the work interesting, but as a creator it's endlessly frustrating because I'm starting out with this goal, this thing I'm trying to create, and then the thing I actually do create is very, very different. It's always painful, in some ways, especially when it's just finished.