I would make a comic for Rolling Stone every two weeks, because they're biweekly. And then I would make weekly comics for my weekly papers. It was on two parallel tracks. And then they all got collected in a book.

I never thought I would make a living as a pencil-sharpener. The first goal was: I don't want to lose money. And then the goal was: I want to see if 100 people buy my pencils. I just kept upping the benchmarks.

I assumed that the pencil market was collapsing, but then it turns out that from 2010 to 2011 in the United States, pencil consumption went up by over six percent. I mean, those are all foreign-made pencils. Those are probably Chinese pencils, mostly, and Mexican pencils. I mean, it is an archaic communication technology, but it is still ubiquitous.

I have very limited craftsmanship. And a lot of the stuff I make plays on that.

People think, "Wow, people in America have so much money, they're sending hundreds of pencils to this guy." I don't think those people realize that most people who are buying these pencils are buying them as art objects or conversation pieces.

The way you make money is to do something you don't like to do. And that's how you know you're a virtuous person.

It would be amazing to tell my grandchildren, like, 'Yeah, I was paid to sharpen 1,000 pencils.'