Humor does depend on surprise, and the things that people remember as the funniest things in the world, you look at later and you go, "What? What was that all about?"

Science fiction and comedy are generally a pretty bumpy mix.

The world ends when I die. And as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the universe might as well call it a day too.

We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff.

The Simpsons and Futurama are such big projects, going on for years and working in different media, that everything involved with them, promotion and merchandise and online presence and all the rest, deserve to be scrutinized, so that's part of it. I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone at the core of a multimedia juggernaut, even if you might not care for the specific pop-culture invasion of your brain. The people who do it work really hard.

'The Simpsons' from the very beginning was based on our memories of brash '60s sitcoms - you had a main title theme that was bombastic and grabbed your attention - and when you look at TV shows of the 1970s and '80s, things got very mild and toned down and... obsequious.

I'm a writer who just happens to draw.