It all depends on which side of the desk you're sitting on.

I was a very sickly kid. While I was in the hospital at age seven, my Dad brought me a stack of comic books to keep me occupied. And I was hooked. When my eighth grade art teacher, Mr. Smedley, told me he thought I had actual art talent, I decided to devote all my efforts in that direction in the hope that I might someday get into the comics biz. I became an art major, took every art class my school had to offer. In college, I majored in Advertising Art and Design.

Lord of the Rings, I think, is far and away the most brilliantly done stuff.

There are very few of us, who reach my advanced age, who are still working in the business, as writers. As artists, people can hang out longer.

You can read a dozen different textbooks or how-to manuals that will tell you the basic rules of what makes a story - a beginning, a middle, and an end.

My father brought me my first stack of comics, when I was seven years old and in the hospital. I was not a well child. And that's where my love for comics began.

I would like immortality.