I didn't dare to dream of making money. But now of course, I've made many thousands of dollars sharpening pencils.

I talked to people in the pencil industry and I talked to people as I was sharpening their pencils about the frustrations they have with pencils, so I really did do my research and I do know more about pencils than most people.

I'm interested in the structure of art and how it works. And the content is also interesting, but I don't want to keep the same structure and just plug in new content every week.

The things I'm grateful for are: I had the one thing that I feel really lucky about, which is that I made something, I made art, that truly - in a weird way - truly comforted me and comforted a lot of people. And I'm really grateful that I got to have that experience.

I liked sharpening pencils and I was like, "Oh, I wonder if I could get paid to do it." And I figured it out and I did it.

I just wanted a really simple, dramatic way so that fans, people who were reading my comic, would be like, "This is something different." Just to flag it, almost.

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.