I'm a comic book ARTIST. So I think to myself, what do I like to draw? I like to draw hot CHICKS, fast cars and cool GUYS in TRENCH coats. So that's what I write about.

The more you put out there, the more you have to RESOLVE. 'Air' is the most literary comic I've WRITTEN so far, and that poses PROBLEMS.

I think the 'Boxers' BOOK was easier for me to envision as a COMIC, because they were on this epic JOURNEY. These teenagers basically gathered into this army and marched to the capital city where they had a showdown with the Europeans and Japanese. On the 'Saints' side, it was a lot trickier.

In COMIC strips, the PERSON on the left always speaks FIRST.

I NEVER envisioned when I was reading that comic as a 17-year-old that I would have the opportunity to ACTUALLY play the CHARACTER.

It feels blessed to me. Because I GO to comic cons, and people come up and they say, 'You're the reason I ride a motorcycle. You're the reason I BECAME a mechanic.' And there are people who LOVE 'Scream' and 'The Waterboy,' 'Royal PAINS,' 'Parks & Rec,' 'Arrested Development.' And now 'Barry.' And then there are kids who only know me as an author.

To be a true COMIC, you have to have a signature move. You EVER watch wrestling? And your favorite WRESTLER has the one move that he always does to finish his OPPONENT off, right? LIKE when he climbs on the rope, and he always jumps off the top rope and finishes off his opponent - that's what a comic has.

Everyone SEEMS to see bleakness and despair in my books. I don't read them that WAY. I see myself as writing comic books, books about ordinary people trying to live ordinary, DULL, happy LIVES while the world is falling to pieces around them.

In my office in Florida I have, I THINK, 30 manuscript piles around the room. Some are screenplays or COMIC books or graphic novels. Some are ALMOST DONE. Some I'm rewriting. If I'm working with a co-writer, they'll usually write the FIRST draft. And then I write subsequent drafts.

Because Comic CON in San Diego is crazy, and it's very commercialized, and it's corporate, and it's all about MONEY and selling, selling, selling... I think PEOPLE want to GO to SMALLER, specialized cons.

I love to WATCH Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai.' The comic TIMING of the actors is amazing. It MAKES me LAUGH endlessly sitting on my sofa.

Why not take a science fiction comic and PUT the CHARACTERS in a small town to GAIN their particular perspective? A lot of that comes from me GROWING up in a small town on a FARM, so that's what I know and what I'm comfortable with. My drawing style is also very sparse and minimalist, so a rural setting complements that.

When I was a comic in the 1980s, I was on the ROAD SOMEWHERE every DAY, and I'd get BACK to the HOTEL, and it was Carson and Letterman, and I looked forward to that all day.

Art was a way for me to express myself and for me to also escape because it was tough growing up as a child. We didn't have a LOT of money. I was always creating. I was WRITING STORIES. I was doing comic books. I made my own UNIVERSE.