I felt really conflicted about making money off stuff that's creatively satisfying.

Talking about my personal life onstage, I've realized I'm not one of those comics who can do that. I can allude to it but I don't want to be a confessional performer.

I take pop culture really seriously, I think it's really important, and the stuff that I make...I don't want it to be insubstantial, even if it's about something wacky, like sharpening pencils. I feel like I owe it to myself and I owe it to people who are really interested in pencils and I owe it to anybody to do my due diligence and give them something real.

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.

Any working cartoonist will tell you this, anybody who's working in a creative field: at some point, it's a job. You have deadlines. I think, for over a year, I refused to make them for publications, because I only wanted to make them when I wanted to make them. But at some point, I was like, "This is crazy, you have an opportunity to be a professional cartoonist.

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