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.

I tend to only read comics written by friends or people I've known. And I'm not a great comic reader.

It surprises me constantly that my sometimes-unorthodox approach has such a large following, but I'm very grateful to my readers for allowing me to continue writing 10 or 12 hours a day.

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 thought I could capture the stories of the city on paper. I thought I could write about the horrors of the city. Horror stories you see. I tell you I didn't have to look far for material. Everywhere I looked, there were stories hidden there in the dark corners. . . . I wrote and still there were more. . . . No one would publish them. 'Too horrible,' they said. 'Sick mind,' they said. I thought I could write about the horrors of the city but the horror is too big and it goes on forever.

American writers often say they find it difficult to write Superman. They say he's too powerful; you can't give him problems. But Superman is a metaphor. For me, Superman has the same problems we do, but on a Paul Bunyan scale. If Superman walks the dog, he walks it around the asteroid belt because it can fly in space. When Superman's relatives visit, they come from the 31st century and bring some hellish monster conqueror from the future. But it's still a story about your relatives visiting.

Why did you make it so hard for me? I'd rather empty the ocean with a sieve. I do it for you. Or count the grains of sand on every beach. All for you. There are so many people, so many countries. But I have time. All the time in the world. Eternity.