I remember when first Stripes and then Animal House came out - which I was really proud of even though it was kind of loose and quite raucous - there were imitative movies that were not quite as good.

I was looking to do something non-fiction because I had done a strip 'My Mom Was a Schizophrenic.' I really enjoyed the process of doing that strip despite its subject matter. To do it I'd had to do a lot of research and reading and I figured I'd like to do that again.

The relationship between Cathy and Mom in the strip is the one relationship drawn from real life that I have proudly never even tried to disguise.

Mothers send strips to daughters to make a point. Daughters smack strips down on the breakfast table to make a point. My own mom sometimes cuts a strip out and sends it to me to make sure I understand her.

Imagine my surprise when after a lifetime of teaching me to keep personal things to myself Mom insisted my drawings were the start of a comic strip for millions of people to enjoy.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

I'll confess right here that I secretly wish I'd have drawn a strip about a little boy with a fake tiger going for adventures throughout the universe in spaceships of his imagination.

You will obtain a vision of matter that is perhaps fatiguing for your imagination but pure and stripped of what the requirements of life make you add to it in external perception.

Well it's a humor strip so my first responsibility has always been to entertain the reader... But if in addition I can help move readers to thought and judgment about issues that concern me so much the better.

Cathy was the first widely syndicated humor strip created by a woman. The strip was pretty revolutionary at the time not only because it starred a female but also because it was so emotionally honest about all the conflicting feelings many women had in 1976.