And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane Chandler Jim Thompson and noir movies like Fuller Orson Welles Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.

I'm a spoilt brat. I thought I was just going to walk in and make movies. But I'd been my own boss for so long that all of a sudden to be facing a roomful of people who were niggling over every little scene... I just thought I'd go back and draw my comics and have a happy life.

You know comics and movies even if you take a comic and turn it into a movie we can't all be Joss Whedon.

On radio and television magazines and the movies you can't tell what you're going to get. When you look at the comic page you can usually depend on something acceptable by the entire family.

I'm not sure anybody's ready to see me in a drama. And loving movies so much I've seen a lot of comics try to make that transition too fast and it can be detrimental. And I don't think I've had as much success as I need in the comedy genre to open up those opportunities.

I think if you do something effectively whether you're the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you'll get asked to play that part again.

When I was a boy I always saw myself as a hero in comic books and in movies. I grew up believing this dream.

That's the biggest part of doing comics: You have to create stuff that makes you want to get out of bed every morning and get to work.

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.