I should say I am far more cleverer than any of the people who put me here. As a matter of fact, I could leave any time I wanted. It's only a doll house after all. Anyway, I don't mind. I like dolls. Particularly the live ones.

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. I use everything. Turning life into stories is how I make sense of my experience.

The perfect fascist state needs to operate in conditions of perpetual warfare. Have you ever noticed how the world has been in constant crisis since World War II?

I love 'Batman.' I love the Adam West 'Batman.' I love the animated 'Batman.' The character of Batman can encompass any interpretation, which is what makes that character so brilliant and why it's survived so many different media.

And that's why people read comics, to get away from the way life works, which is quite cruel and unheroic and ends in death.

The 'medium' is unaware of its attractiveness, that's all. Everyone loves comics. I've proven this to my own satisfaction by handing them out to acountants, insurance brokers, hairdressers, mothers of children, black belts, pop stars, taxi drivers, painters, lesbians, doctors etc. etc. The X-Files, Buffy, the Matrix, X-Men - mainstream culture is not what it once was when science fiction and comics fans huddled in cellars like Gnostic Christians dodging the Romans. We should come up into the light soon before we suffocate.

It's always interesting to see what the real enthusiasts think, but they're rarely representative of the tastes of the wider audience, so I tend to write for myself, for an imagined smart 14-year-old, and for a couple of friends who are still big comics fans.