Believe it or not, the characters are all like people I went to art school with in the '70s.

I'm more interested in characters who are a little difficult.

Comic characters have to have some kind of life breathed into them, and I'm never exactly sure how that's done, but you can tell when it works and when it doesn't. There's nothing worse than looking at a comic when somebody doesn't have that. It's like looking at store windows or something.

For example, I noticed that every single kid in the high school in 'The Death-Ray' is based on somebody I went to high school with.

I don't think anything to do with who publishes the work matters at all, as long as they're not compromising to get published.

There's a lot of great cartoonists working, but I don't see too many people coming along who are of the 'where have you been all my life?' variety.