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In film, you have the luxury of accomplishing what you need in 24 frames every second. Comics, you only have five or six panels a page to do that.

The great thing about working in comics is that visually, you're the sole voice. You have to figure out the staging, the lighting, the composition, the character emotions, the action. You get a script, but you're trying to work it out in individual panels. It's a terrific exercise in creative thinking and creative problem-solving.

So much of comics are dictated by characters talking to one another - or in focused spaces where 'the camera' has to stay in pretty close on what's going on.

Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film, you've got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.

You know, comics were created at the same time as the cinema. And the cinema very quickly became a major art. Cartooning didn't become a major art. There's a reason for that. People don't know how to deal with drawings.

I have this certain vision of the way I want my comics to look; this sort of photographic realism, but with a certain abstraction that comics can give. It's kind of a fine line.

Making comic adaptations means making a lot of choices - you need to adjust the pacing, the dialogue, and in this case, a lot of the cultural references.

The most frustrating part of working in TV and film is that you have to convince someone to let you make what you want; in comics you can do whatever you want and for 1% of the budget of TV and film.

I draw on a lot of cinematic influences like Ingmar Bergman and Wim Wenders, artists who let a story take its time. Comics are a visual medium, and visuals should be allowed to tell some of that story.

When working on a period, it is the finer details that evoke imagery that helps in cinematic adaptations.