My success was the shock of recognition, probably, rather than the quality of the work. I mean, the quality may have been fine, but there's a lot of fine work out there. It was the fact that I was doing something that at that time, nobody else was doing, except for say, Mort Saul out in San Francisco on The Hungry Eye, and "Second City" was emerging out in Chicago. Nothing in print. It was basically happening in cabaret and nothing in fiction. And certainly nothing in New York in cartoons.

There's the excitement of adding color, which I didn't know anything about until 1997 or so, when I did my first picture book. So, the kid's book in particular have been exciting for me because it forced me to go back to the work I loved as a young boy reading Sunday's supplements and comics in the Sunday papers when I was six, seven, eight, nine. And number of which have been in wonderful collections, beautifully reproduced.

I've never met a cartoonist who isn't quirky or weird in some ways.

I told the doctor I was overtired, anxiety-ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed, with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I'm normal.

I have no sense of direction; I never know where I am. When I back up a car, I'm more likely to hit what's behind me than not, because I have no vision for it. I've never been able to play games or play cards because I can't in my head get the next move. I've never been able to balance a checkbook. So there's some brain damage, but it may be that very brain damage that allows me to do the work I do. I've never met a cartoonist who isn't quirky or weird in some ways.

When I am working a book, I go through my library and take a look through some of the great cartoonists of the past, like Cliff Sterrett, who did "Polly and Her Pals," or Winsor McCay who did "A Little Nemo in Slumberland," and Herriman - and I just looked through these guys and looked for somebody to steal. You know, looked for who I could swipe, or turn into - who's work I will turn into my work. And I still use, after all these years, these artists as inspirations. So, here in my eighties, I go back to when I was eight for my inspiration.

Whether these were liberal publications or conservative publications, whether they were mainstream or slightly to the side of the mainstream; out of the mainstream, they all believed that they had the right to tell you how to stylize yourself. And from the New York Times to the much more left-winged nation. And The Voice said, no, whatever you want to. You drew whatever you want to, we'll publish it. Nobody was doing that. Nobody does it today. The Voice is no longer that paper, and editorializing is now in the hands of editors, with few exceptions.