When you're young you don't know anything, but you have lot of energy to express yourself. So you make a lot of mistakes and you stumble, but you also get a lot of truth from within.

I've known gay people - men and women - since I was a young person. To me it's just naturalistic and realistic to portray gay characters in a humanistic light. As a young man, I knew enough gay people as people not to fear them. On the other side of the coin, I like to irritate conservatives and homophobes.

If you believe in what you're doing, and someone criticizes that, it's likely that they're just coming from a different place and they're bringing their own baggage and it's basically projection. I try not to let it get to me.

I grew up being really insecure and dumped on, over-feeling certain things in a negative way. So I thought I had something to prove.

Once we got going on the Fantagraphics version of Love and Rockets, our encouragement was constant. People wanted us to do more, do more. Thirty years later, here we are.

Reviewers and critics can be overly cynical. If something the least bit sentimental comes up, they'll often start flying off the handle. But I'm like, 'Wait a minute, you've had those times in your life. Everybody has.

I grew up when comics were only sold in food markets and news stands, so the direct market is vital to me. The best way to make it stronger is if everybody buys my comics in multiple copies before they buy any others.