I was doing political cartoons and getting angry to the point where I felt I was going to have to start making and throwing bombs. I thought I was probably a better cartoonist than a bomb maker.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
One can become enthusiastic over anything. For a time I was delighted with bomb throwing. It gave me a tremendous pleasure to bomb those fellows from above.
When I was starting out in 1988, I was doing cartoons on President George H. W. Bush, Iraq and the fall of Soviet Union.
I felt so painfully isolated that I vowed I would get revenge on the world by becoming a famous cartoonist.
I am not sure why, but I have been obsessed by the Atom Bomb ever since it first happened.
When I was 18, I went to the Soviet Union. I kept hearing that America was planning to bomb them - lots of bombs were going to come down on these people. I went there not knowing anything, except that I thought the whole thing was stupid and that I wanted to see who these people were that we were going to bomb.
I became a cartoonist because I'd sort of failed at everything else, really. I mean, it was by default.
When I first seriously decided to become a cartoonist would have been '99/2000, right before 9/11. I've been writing and illustrating stories in the world post-9/11 since then, watching the world change around me.
I did 32 years of political cartoons, one every day for six days a week, I wrote and drew every word, every line. That body of work is the one I'm proudest of.
I really wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, but nobody liked my work. I didn't have the control or flair that was necessary to create something that didn't look childish.
I started doing cartoons when I was about 21. I never thought I would be a cartoonist. It happened behind my back. I was always a painter and drawer.