It's also true, however, that having conquered the regional writer ghetto, I am now intent on conquering the nationalist writer ghetto and moving out into the world more.

My grandfather was a newspaper publisher and his paper had all the comics in NYC, so some of my earliest memories are of reading the family paper and heading straight for the comics insert.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

This is odd, but there are certain things that are really embarrassing to talk about - one is my job and the success that I've had in it, and the other is money.

When prose gets too stylized and out of control - and Stein is sometimes a good example - when you don't know what the hell is going on, then it's kind of boring.

All the stuff that I used to treat with contempt - you know, I'm an artist, man, I don't do that family stuff - has begun to seem really important.

Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.

I always wanted to write something illustrated, and the Details strip finally gave me the opportunity.

I have worked really hard to defy categorization, to break down a taxonomy whenever it comes my way.

I judged about a zillion awards this year so I've been reading a lot of books that just came out.

I love comic books and always did as a kid.

I made this list of stuff that it's time for me to try to do.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.

I turned forty, and I'm finally going to get married and maybe have a kid.

I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that.

Literature precedes genre.

Maybe when I'm sixty-five I'll talk about my literary life.

My contention is that that style is just as stylized as an ornate style.