I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era.

When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world.

There are so many comics about violence. I'm not entertained or amused by violence, and I'd rather not have it in my life. Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics. Pornography is usually bland, repetitive and ugly, and, at most, 'does the job.' I always wanted to make a book that is pornographic, but is also, I hope, beautiful, and mysterious, and engages the mind.

I like stories that exist both in the naturalistic world and in our imaginative lives, films are so immersive in that sense, we can explore how our characters think and dream, as well as how they exist in the real world.

But actually making pictures to look like my pictures, I've done it for so long, I'm kind of used to it now. So at the beginning of the process, designing and storyboarding everything, I sort of did all that. And then designed the characters, and doing the textures for the characters, and the texture maps to cover all the animated characters and the sets, I did those, because that's where my sort of coloring and textures get imprinted on the film.

There is nobody who is good or bad, it's just not like that. They all are complex individuals. They all see the world in their own way that makes complete sense to them. Nobody goes around feeling that they're evil - they think that they're doing the right thing. And so that seems to have something really important, big, and deep to say about human beings.

The filmmakers I really love are the ones that let me look through their eyes for a while. They have an aesthetic and social point of view.