I personally like the idea of newspapers. It's a good format. You can read it in whatever order you want. You can glance at it. There is something about a single screen and scrolling through pages that just doesn't have the same appeal.

'The Simpsons' is an especially collaborative show.

I think in daily newspapers, the way comic strips are treated, it's as if newspaper publishers are going out of their way to kill the medium. They're printing the comics so small that most strips are just talking heads, and if you look back at the glory days of comic strips, you can see that they were showcases for some of the best pop art ever to come out.

Sometimes people get mad at The Simpsons' subversive story telling, but there's another message in there, which is a celebration of making wild, funny stories.

Lisa: 'Do we have any food that wasn't brutally slaughtered?' Homer: 'Well, I think the veal died of loneliness.'

The thing about a cartoon is, you can do whatever you want. The tightrope that we are walking on 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' is "How do you continue to surprise the audience, but make them good surprises?" Not every surprise is good, but you want to continue jolting people.

As astute followers of 'Life in Hell' will notice, Akbar and Jeff wear the same striped T-shirt as Charlie Brown. 'Peanuts' was very important to me.