I wouldn't necessarily have been making books about how to make comics if I'd really felt I knew how to make comics.

There's a very big part of me that just wants to take all of comics history and toss it on the bonfire. I'd sort of like to get on to the future.

If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.

As I see it, mainstream comics now speak only to the hardcore few who stayed; conversing in a weird, garbled, visual pig latin only they can understand - rendering the term 'mainstream' a hollow joke - while the true mainstream, the other 99.9% of the populace, find enjoyment elsewhere.

All through my comics career, I was always trying to reinvent the form.

When you're free of editorial control, you owe it to yourself to obtain feedback from friends and readers. Some take those criticisms to heart and incorporate it into their work, and some ignore them.

Comic book readers are just as abandoned by the corporate system as the creators, despite the importance supposedly given their hard-earned dollars. The average comics shop can offer only a tiny fraction of an industrywide selection that is itself extremely limited in scope. And even when readers know exactly what they want, the search can be maddeningly futile.