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I was of the generation where most of the Disney princesses and female characters were not girls that I admired. They just weren't characters I looked up to and identified with.

I think women have such rich emotional lives that they are expressive about. I also think they're funny. I like watching strong female characters, and I like writing them. I don't know if it's conscious that I gravitate towards women, but it's certainly evolved that way.

I think that's the kind of women that people are interested in. They're interested in strong women characters who are stronger than the male characters sometimes, in some ways. That's what's interesting and attractive about women.

I do find that when I see women who flesh out the television or film world and make it look more like the world I actually live in, I gravitate towards those characters.

When you think of Grimm's fairy tales, they are deeply, deeply psychological. They're so powerful, so bloody, and really, really disturbing. Think about five-year-olds reading that stuff. Even 'Little Red Riding Hood' is a really freaky story. Grandma is gobbled up by a wolf, and the wolf is going to eat the girl. That's scary stuff.

In terms of showing their emotions and acting on them, my women characters are a lot more advanced than the men.

Being female was just one more way I felt different and weird. I was also a young 'un, and also my cartoons were not like typical 'New Yorker' cartoons.

I was a Nancy Drew girl. Also Grimms' fairy tales.

I find women as writers and as characters are operating within narrow confines. They inherit a kind of ghetto of the soul. I'm trying to enlarge the spectrum.

You may debate whether the Disney heroines fit the feminist standard, but they don't live in a democracy. Remember, they're princesses.