I learned that, "Mike, you get your first job on your ability and every job after that on your dependability."

I know some stories about "liberation" and stuff that's been liberated by people who turn around and get on their soapbox about how it's unfair that the artists didn't benefit while they're sitting on stuff that they "liberated," but that's another story for another time.

There are different rules for comic books now. You've got prima donna's that are dealing with the direct sales market, so if they say it's going to be late, then that's what you tell the dealers and it's late.

Why are other people profiting off that? I can see that if I have the page and sold it for $50 and 20 years later somebody's got it for $200, okay. That's business. But I had no say in that art being out there. It just really burns me.

I did a dozen superhero pinups. I signed them "Kirby/Royer" because it was Kirby's drawing. I didn't think I was committing some sort of sin.

Being a naive 20-something I didn't think that I could just go to the screen cartoonist's union, that I was a member of, and scream bloody murder and they would have jumped all over this guy and said, "Oh, but yes he does get screen credit."

Forty percent of my ideas came from my wife.