Bloom County was set in a tidy, rural environment probably because of Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'

I could draw Bloom County with my nose and pay my cleaning lady to write it, and I'd bet I wouldn't lose 10% of my papers over the next twenty years. Such is the nature of comic-strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste.

I drew the last image ever of Opus at midnight while Puccini was playing and I got rather stupid. Thirty years. A bit like saying goodbye to a child - which is ironic because I was never, never sentimental about him as many of his fans were.

I grew up in Los Angeles and always wished I'd spent a childhood in a far different place.

Doonesbury had the requisite and overwhelming influence in 1980, as it did on any college cartoonist who was paying attention, of course.

My post-child period resulted in one instant change: I write shorter books for kids.