Comics are really my life blood in a lot of respects.

I still love a lot of the guys who just paint.

I wanted to be complete, because I figured that, visually, there was an avenue to explore with painted stuff.

People who can pull you in and take you on a journey, as opposed to simply adding flash. Again, that feels very clinical, and I don't respond to that the way I used to.

Comics are really my life blood in a lot of respects.

Nothing is really media driven or committee driven, so you can actually just produce something.

If somebody can inspire me, it feels really special.

And I've never viewed comics as assignments for the client.

So cartooning, for me, is an honorable thing. It's pushing the envelope. It's the truth of something through exaggeration.

For a while I felt very alone; sort of out there in the world of comics, especially here in the States.

There is a whole generation of people who are going to see movies or watch TV who don't want to work.

So much of Jaws was amazing because the mind filled in what was missing.

You're telling the story, creating the sets, doing the lighting, the designing, and establishing the pace.

To me, that's one of the things that I love about doing this stuff. One day I can work on this piece in watercolor, and then work on something else on the computer, or work on something else that's a completely different approach.

But if I really want to produce my own work and tell stories, then I will.

So, when the special effects are at the service of the story and draw you into it, that is really the magic.

I want to say 90% of stuff out there is just crap that got made. The main point is that it got produced.

I wanted to learn how to paint rather than just doing black-and-white work.

It's interesting, because in the corporate stuff there's a dichotomy there, depending on the creator. Even what, in essence, may be a very safe corporate approach, there is some stuff that is allowed to be pushed.

So there's kind of a simultaneous aspect to pushing the boundaries, and being very safe.

And that, to me, is the main attraction to comics. It's an avenue to say what you want to say.

I was lucky enough to be given books that weren't top sellers; books that were kind of under the radar.

One of the problems I have with a lot of movies these days is that everything is too well lit. In the world of digital creations there is a tendency to show too much.

I didn't want to feel constrained, so I took on the Mutants.

To me, the technique was almost irrelevant; it was what was coming across.

But I'm aware of the fact that I'm working in a commercial venue where I'm producing something that I wouldn't normally be approaching the way I'm doing it.

So I look at a lot of stuff now that I did and some of it looks tame to me, but my interest in terms of what I want to say with it is a little different.

Kyle Baker's work is really funny, but it's also got a very clear vision.

But there's still an avenue for smaller comics and personal expression.

But with comics you're reading and assimilating an image simultaneously, instead of just reading or watching the tube.

After that I jumped, especially being in art school, to the illustrators.

Especially with Elektra, because I'm doing a lot of the covers for the new version of Elektra.

Like Godfather, you look at a movie like that, or something that James Gray has directed, a film with minimal or pin lighting as opposed to everything being lit bright and flat, where everything is evident.

Cartooning is an honorable thing.

Do the story in the way it really demands to be done, which may mean using several different styles or only one style; but it's still about respecting the story.

If you're going to establish a certain level of unreality than you have to deal with it.

That was a real learning element for me, because I realized that the more true you are to yourself, the more you will lose people.

So much of 'Jaws' was amazing because the mind filled in what was missing.

Twice a week I would receive injections or IV's of Factor VIII which clotted the blood and then broke it down.

Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy.

Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.

The anguish of the neurotic individual is the same as that of the saint. The neurotic, the saint are engaged in the same battle. Their blood flows from similar wounds. But the first one gasps and the other one gives.

I had no blood relatives till I made some.

I know that I'm very lucky to be alive. For 35 or 40 years I've spilt my blood and broke my bones and spent years in hospitals.

Don't forget that the only two things people read in a story are the first and last sentences. Give them blood in the eye on the first one.

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

No one will ever know what 'In Cold Blood' took out of me. It scraped me right down to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me.

Some people say my work is often depressing and pessimistic, with the emphasis on death, blood, overcrowding, strange beings and so on, but I don't really think it is.