Quotes On Comics

I have nothing against superheroes or anything like that, any genre.

In Ghost World Seymour [Steve Buscemi] says something like, “I assumed you would’ve thought of me as an amusingly cranky eccentric curiosity,” and every time I watch the movie I’m like, How did he make that actually sound like a real line?

I’d had the name Lloyd Llewellyn ever since I was a little kid, because in the old Superman comics, as you’ll recall, they had this weird obsession with the double L’s.

All of my characters take on a life of their own, and I have notions as to what happens to each of them.

My generation of cartoonists, we’re not exactly underground.

Mugs and T-shirts.

It’s not like a job at Microsoft, you’ve got to be obsessed.

When I drew I would often have some classic comic open on the table beside me for inspiration.

I’ll never type in a url to look at comics.

It’s interesting how people have gravitated toward this awful grind of doing a daily strip.

Likable characters are for weak-minded narcissists.

I think I’ll go down with the sinking ship that is the publishing business before I re-emerge as a desperate and apologetic Web cartoonist (”C’mon guys—buy some mugs and t-shirts!”).

Comics seem to be getting more and more complicated these days, and even the best of them can be a chore to plow through.

I have such trouble explaining my career to people who are just sort of aware of Ghost World or David Boring and Ice Haven.

I always get these letters from kids who say, “I’m thinking of doing comics as a career.” And I just think if you even articulate that thought, you should run.

Something like Persepolis sold well because it’s — she’s not a brilliant stylist, by any means, but it’s about a subject that people wanted to read about.

Seeing comic art on the wall is really interesting as a cartoonist.

Every professor I had discouraged me and said, “You’ll never make a living from that [comics]; nobody cares, nobody will think of you as an artist.” And now I realize, when I look back on them, that they were absolute failures.

The interesting thing about a comic book is that it’s the world as it exists inside my head, put on paper.

A typical American comic is something you can read while you’re standing in line waiting to buy it.

I lose faith in everything else, but rarely in my work.

I’m always looking for things I imagine must exist, but don’t – this is usually the impetus to create that thing myself.

I like the books very much, and admire Hergé’s work, but having never seen a Tintin volume until I was a teenager, I have no visceral pop culture nostalgia inflecting my appreciation.