I love comics, but I'd rather cut off my thumbs than do nothing but.

Art is for the elite because it has a very high price-point of entry. And when one is in that social strata, they look down at illustrators because they just draw things directly for a few hundred dollars and that's seen as being a bit grubby. Galleries allow artists to stay relatively divorced from the financial aspects of their trade. I am lucky because I do fine art, and that is half of my living. And then illustration provides the other half.

I feel like the traditional patron system meant that you would kiss the ass of one rich person and then hide all of the financial goings-on of your work, and you could pretend you were pure.

Rohini Mohan read. While she did, I sketched her. She writes with such beauty and violence, and it seemed like the best way to listen was to really watch her, in the way that only drawing someone lets me do.

I had difficulty being friends with women who hadn't worked in either the sex or beauty industries. I felt like other women sometimes overvalued beauty and sexuality, when in actuality, they're just parts of a job.

But the thing about proving things? Your jaggedness just goads you on – it makes you sharper and harder. It gives you swagger.

I can't reasonably pretend to be a transparent and omniscient narrator who brings no personal perspective. That person doesn't exist.