There's a difference between sexy and hyper-sexy. The way I have drawn Vampirella, she's definitely sexy, I designed the costume. But her costume, through the years, has gotten briefer and briefer. She has been hypersexualized, but not by me. I mean, I see drawings in which she's got the 'brokeback pose'. I would never do that.

I entered high school she[ my mother] said, "Well, you're a teenager now, and comics are for kids, so you shouldn't read them anymore," and I went, "Oh, okay," and I gave away what, of course, would now be thousands of dollars worth of comics to the neighborhood kids.

It's really sad that Wonder Woman is, she's really a slave. She belongs to DC. She's not a living person. And so she's at their mercy, and she's at the mercy of whoever writes her and whoever draws her.

Today, although as a whole, the industry is still male-dominated, more women are drawing comics than ever before, and there are more venues for them to see their work in print. In the 1950s, when the comic industry hit an all-time low, there was no place for women to go. Today, because of graphic novels, there's no place for aspiring women cartoonists to go but forward.

I am proud of having drawn the first comic about a lesbian - and it didn't even occur to me that I was drawing a first. I just wanted to tell the story of my roommate.

I object to the hypersexualization of all the superheroines. Most of them have been hypersexualized, but especially to Wonder Woman, because she is an icon. She is up there with Superman and Batman. And she is the one who is the big influence on women. Women who don't read comics still know who Wonder Woman is.

I always drew. I don't remember a time when I didn't draw. And I actually drew comics from the age of maybe ten through twelve.