Speaking for myself, but [Kriota] probably [agrees], I don't do different things because I have to, but certainly my career's taken a lot of twists and turns because things work out for a while and then something shifts and they don't. I went into illustration as a way of supporting my comics career. Then I got really interested in performance and I knew that was always going to be more of a hobby, but that's something I've kept doing.

But lots of people do parody now. The whole mash-up thing that's so prevalent now was starting in the 80's when I was starting to think about this stuff. I certainly wasn't the first person to do it but now... comics mash-ups, all kinds of mash-ups are everywhere.

I guess I try to find the humor by juxtaposing deeper themes in literature with what people perceive as being lighter, disposable children's fare in comics.

I felt what I was trying to do was make people realize that comics could be deep. I stopped myself in the middle of saying that because the Bazooka Joe thing I do with Dante's Inferno, that was just a goof. I wasn't trying to make people look at Bazooka Joe more seriously. But in my mind it's always been important.

The characters have desperation and it doesn't work out for everyone. Maybe it's not fair because I'm responding to the adaptations that smooth out the edges.

I used to be concerned about style, worried about my work looking like a bad copy of someone who's better than me. So my embracing of the research and finding a way to replicate something consciously rather than replicate something unconsciously seemed like a way to go to distinguish what I do.

I'm such a product of my media diet... it's interesting that you say what I do is observational. It's observational as far as it goes - to the extent that I observe media closely. Kriota might have a better sense of this. I don't always have the best sense of how human nature works, but I certainly know how to dismantle representations of characters.