Seven actors have played Batman on the big screen, and if you can name all seven without reading any further, your youth has been wasted.

I think that superhero comics in particular are really useful for talking about big emotions and feelings, and personifying and concretizing symbols.

I prefer working out of strict continuity, because no normal human being can have a firm grip on the constantly shifting bardo-like territory of a comics universe, where entire histories can be erased by a strong enough super-sneeze.

I do like to keep abreast of what the hardcore vocal members of the comics-reading audience are talking about on Internet message boards, but there are so few of them, as a percentage of the buying audience, that I can't allow their opinions to dictate story direction.

I won't tell you again! Don't look back! In hell you never look back!

X-Men is not a story about superheroes, but a story about the ongoing revolutionary struggle between good/new and bad/old. The X-Men are every rebel teenager wanting to change the world and make it better. Humanity is every adult, clinging to the past, trying to destroy the future even as he places all his hopes there.

Burnout is grist to the mill. I write every day, for most of the day, so it's just about turning into metaphor whatever's going on in my life, in the world, and in my head. Every nightmare, every moment of grief or joy or failure, is a moment I can convert into cash via words.