I decided I was going to tell these stories. I went around and met Crumb. He was the cartoonist. I started realizing comics weren't just kid stuff.

I always wanted praise and I always wanted attention; I won't lie to you. I was a jazz critic and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted people to write about me, not me about them. So I thought, What could I do? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't act or anything like that. OK, I can write.

Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.

Im pretty aggressive, and maybe obnoxious, about trying to get work.

I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.

As a matter of fact, I deliberately look for the mundane, because I feel these stories are ignored. The most influential things that happen to virtually all of us are the things that happen on a daily basis. Not the traumas.

It didnt take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.