In the comic-book world, there tends to be an overblown sense of tradition. Bad habits die hard. There are ways I think the form could work more effectively if we lost the bad habits that were created before we were born.

I moved to New York and was told, "Go back home. We don't need you. Go pump gas. You're from Vermont. We've got no use for you. You're not drawing guys in tights." So, I learned how to draw guys in tights, and I put them in as many crime situations as I could.

The rain on my chest is a baptism - I'm born again.

I prefer to write and draw in the privacy of my home and with total freedom and then take it to the lion's den.

My feeling is that the hero has now been defined by phrases like the odious one that we were all raised with - crimes does not pay. Of course it pays, you schmuck. That's not why we don't do it. We don't do it because it is wrong.

The Dark Knight series is all from Batman's point of view. But if you look at Dark Knight 2, you'll see a Superman who's much calmer than the one in the first Dark Knight. Batman and Superman are dead opposites. I love Superman. Do I love Batman more? They're not people. They're only lines on paper.

As a cartoonist, I'm a caricaturist. First you find out what somebody really looks like, and then you find out what they 'really' look like.