Jesus died to forgive our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?

Writing, I explained, was mainly an attempt to out-argue one's past; to present events in such a light that battles lost in life were either won on paper or held to a draw.

I was doing cartoons and mocking white liberals, mocking the attitude of government who said to go slow, while intending to do absolutely nothing for black people, then called Negroes. And I had a lot of fun and I expressed a lot of anger. That was a thing that was important to know at that time. As I was emerging into more and more into politics that I was angry.

In the Depression, besides everybody being poor, our entertainment was much more primitive and innocent. The comic strip, which I so venerated, was still a very new form. Movies had just become talkies. Radio had just gone coast to coast for the first time. Network radio had just begun when I was a kid. So all of these forms were more or less in their infancy, and feeling their oats. Comics were fresh and funny and nervy, and in a sense, defiant of the prevailing culture.

Jesus died to forgive our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?

I don't know how comic artists feed their families, if they do. But it's a fascinating form and so I think that after a long period of nothing happening and work, nothing very impressive, we are into another golden age of comics. Unfortunately, it's not a golden age for the artists themselves economically. I don't know how they get along.

There's no rap against comics that isn't true. They were sexist, they were racist, you name it - and they kind of gloried in that.