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I do not read newspaper comics unless they happen to be out when I visit my parents, but I follow several online comics, which I check every morning while I drink my coffee and wake up for the day.

Comics creators are generally screwed in life: Most of us who are fortunate enough to do comics full time - which is very few of us - will literally draw until we die because we have no employment structures intact for retirement, much less insurance!

I like talking about comic book process, and one of the things is that I have plans going ahead for years, and the plans constantly get thrown away and shifted. There's a difference between planning and what actually happens in life, and comics have a life of their own.

One of the things about comics is people can linger on images and words as long as they want.

Comics are not theatre - there's a very important difference in that the reader controls the page. You can linger on a page of comics as long as you want. You can read and go forward and then move back; you can reread, in one sitting or at your leisure. You can take as much time as you want to take in that story.

The reason I love comics more than anything else is that the longest story will be just a few pages. With a novel, it takes so many pages to get to one thing happening.

My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the next.

As you get older you're told to be sensible, but it's important for writing if you're a comic that you're able to still access that childlike thing.

When I realized that people actually wrote comics, that it was a job people could do, I thought, 'Gee, these things are only 17 pages long! I could probably finish one of those and find out whether I suck before I've spent five years of my life on it.' In stumbling into comics that way, I discovered that I loved the form.

By and large, I think that comics work seriously hard. Many have other jobs as well, plus you never really switch off, so you're always working.