When I started out in the eighties, the idea of creating serious comics for adults was pretty laughable to most folks, and for the longest time it was hard to even explain what alternative comics or graphic novels were. Nobody seemed to understand or care. Not so, any longer.
Compared to what comics say today, I'm a monk, but in those days, it was unheard of to make fun of people like I did. Of course, they exaggerated how outrageous I really was.
People look at Marvel movies as epic in scope, but if you look back at the comics, you realise that Marvel heroes were often a reaction to the square-jawed DC characters like Superman, who were flawless and beyond reproach.
I had been working on this series called 'Everything Dies,' and it was basically me doing non-fiction essays, responding to religion and stuff like that, and I really got into this ideas of telling factual stories via comics.
I used to draw comics a lot. I was obsessed with 'The Young Ones,' and was massively into video games, although I was no good at them.
Some people can do things and get away with it. Comics are famously like that. Why is it that some guys can say the most horrible things and it's not offensive, it's funny?
I know there are fewer women comics, and I think there'll continue to be an inherent sexism in many industries, comedy being one, just because things do take a while to evolve. Things are changing, but it's going to take time. I accept this rather than getting angry about it.
I just really respond to comics. I find it a really exciting medium.
As a small kid, I came across things like these early Edward Gorey books in department-store bookstores. These were these really unusual objects to me. I didn't know how they fit into the comic world or into newspaper comics.
I have to say, self-servingly, I downloaded my own comics. I downloaded 'Batman: Hush.'
'Ghost Rider' definitely has an appeal that's far beyond comics.
As a fanboy, I was raised on the Marvel Universe, so I was very familiar with the 'Deadpool' world. On the other side, the 'X-Men' comics were one of my top five comics, so to be one of them, especially Colossus, is an incredible thing after years of creatively visualizing him since I was a kid.
Some comics have long routines to get them in the mood - I just prefer to sit down, write out the same jokes in a different order and then have a little prayer that I won't be met by silence.
I'm an attorney when I'm not writing comics, and have been for years. That's a side of my life I don't always associate with pure creativity, but it's all worked out nicely.
I've gotten more and more cut off from the regular comic-book world, from straight comics and stuff like that. Once in a while, I'll take a look at something.
I love the challenge of taking established, iconic comics characters and showing readers why they remain contemporary.
I am into belly dancing. I used to only hang with comics. Now I have friends who are dancers, and my whole house has a harem feel.
The thing is, the Superman comics have been around a long time, and so have the movies. They've done a lot of Superman movies, as they have with Batman.
Spider-Man has always been a huge part of my life. I love the movies. I love the comics. And I always just wanted to be Spider-Man.
Comics don't work if the story is all in the text and the images are illustrative. It's hard to have enough faith in the artists to allow them to do their job.
When you first hear the name 'Max Irons,' you'd be forgiven for assuming that Marvel comics has come up with a new superhero.
I love getting on You Tube to look at the old comics. I am in my element seeing guys like Jack Benny and Phil Silvers give interviews.
Unlike a lot of comics, I didn't care about getting on 'Saturday Night Live.' That show had such history and was so established that I didn't see the point.
When I was very young, I didn't really write my own material. I just memorized other peoples' jokes. Established comics, like Stanley Myron Handelman and people like that. And then, for every comic, you develop your own style after a while.
You have to show up at 7 in the morning and be on like it's 9 at night. It's a skill. Some comics run from it, and they hate doing it, but the comics that are pros understand how important it is, and they get good at it.
With comics, there's no budget. There's a budget in terms of you have to pay an artist and a colorist and all that, but you can do anything you want to do.
I go to ComicCon every year, but it's in a work capacity. I'm a legitimate fan of comics, and I have been since I was 5.
I remember when I was a kid and I would go to the comic-book store, I would have no idea what was going on in that month's issues. Sometimes I wouldn't even know what comics were coming out until I walked into the store.
The audience for comics has shifted dramatically. And the boundaries between books and fine arts have blurred. Maybe it's the globalization of fine art through the Internet - it's easy for certain groups to coalesce around a certain kind of work or medium.
I was embarrassingly well-versed in Marvel lore, so it was pretty easy to slip into that world. But really, already, by the time I'd started writing superhero comics, my dream was really to be writing my own characters.
The quickest way to defuse fear or insecurity or anger is usually humor. I think comics figure that out quickly, and, once you figure it out, you think, 'Hey, if I can do this and get paid, that would be kind of cool.'
It wasn't until I booked the role of Cyborg that I was sent literally everything Cyborg-related from DC comics.
I'm like the Davy Crockett of comedy... after Davy Crockett opened up the West and helped everybody... they didn't need him anymore. I freed a lot of comics... if I never would have done comedy, it would've been a different art form... I'm sure of it.
My brother is a comic-book writer, and I was always in love with comics.
And then as I got older, see, I think a lot of times with comics, your life kind of permeates your act. Whatever is happening in your life is what's going on on stage. So if you're angry in your life, then that's going to be on stage. If you're looking for the guy that's just going to make you laugh for an hour and forget about, that's me.
'Comic book' has come to mean a specific genre, not a story form, in people's minds. So someone will call 'Die Hard' a 'comic-book movie,' when it has nothing to do with comic books. I'd rather have comics be the vehicle by which stories are told.
