Wizards was my homage to Tolkien in the American idiom. I had read Tolkien, understood Tolkien, and wanted to do a sort of fantasy for American kids, and that was Wizards.

I'm having the same problems today that I had when I first started, saying that outrageous adult animation works.

Its all big money, high rent, high prices in New York City now. The poor people completely got rolled over. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's disgusting.

The art of cartooning is vulgarity. The only reason for cartooning to exist is to be on the edge. If you only take apart what they allow you to take apart, you're Disney. Cartooning is a low-class, for-the-public art, just like graffiti art and rap music. Vulgar but believable, that's the line I kept walking.

I separate cartooning, which is fun and wacky and soulful, from illustration, which is very well-drawn and extremely uptight to look at. There's a difference. I'm a cartoonist.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

I'm the first to admit that I can't be as good as Tolkien, and a movie can never be as good as Tolkien.