By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to emotional life.

I grew up with an artist father, and my parents' friends were also mainly artists or writers, so he connects what I do with his example.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

I'd have been a filmmaker or a cartoonist or something else which extended from the visual arts into the making of narratives if I hadn't been able to shift into fiction.

By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to emotional life.

Yes! I'm the slowest comic-book writer on Earth.

I've discovered that like every writer, I'm helpless MYSELF - and that means I find myself unconsciously or semi-consciously repeating motifs and themes and even using certain words or images recurrently in my work, no matter how much I think I'm starting fresh. But I've always admired artists who made a specific sport of trying to visit different kinds of genres or mediums or modes - not just 'western' or 'detective', but comedy/tragedy, epic and miniature, traditional/experimental.