I'm lucky to have a job doing something I really love to do, and I'm happy to accept the pressures of relentless deadlines or reader expectations as necessary evils. It's probably not as stressful as mining coal or leading men into battle.

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.

The only time I ever met a character that I wrote was when I met Ian McKellan, when he was playing Magneto in the 'X-Men' movies.

He read me extracts from a medical journal describing the progress of a staphylococcus aureus infection. And then he pleasured me with a potato.

The only thing that made me, or any of us, special was that no one in the whole of history would ever see the universe exactly the same way any other of us saw it.

I have to confess I'm not a huge comics fan in the wider sense of comics as an art form.

I'm the evil mastermind behind the scenes. I'm the wicked puppeteer who pulls the strings and makes you dance. I'm your writer.