What I want to bring back to superheroes with this project is a sense of play. Things have gotten so dreary. The heroes have gotten so ugly that even their muscles have muscles.

Sometimes the solitary voice can be the best one.

I will throw all my best efforts into it, my thoughts and political observations, but ultimately I want to create a narrative that keeps you turning the pages and leaves you with a sense that this thing has a reason for being there.

My feeling is that the hero has now been defined by phrases like the odious one that we were all raised with - crimes does not pay. Of course it pays, you schmuck. That's not why we don't do it. We don't do it because it is wrong.

What I want to bring back to superheroes with this project is a sense of play. Things have gotten so dreary. The heroes have gotten so ugly that even their muscles have muscles.

You can't have virtue without sin. What I'm after is having my characters' virtues defined by how they operate in a very sinful environment. That's how you test people.

Think of me as the weathered sheriff coming back into Dodge 'cause the youngsters are shooting up the church and scaring the horses and not doing right by the women.

The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time.

'Occupy' is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

But I'm not trying to convince anybody how to vote or how to live. Nobody's ever successfully accused me of being realistic.

Cartoonists' dirty secret is that we tend to come up with stories that involve things that are really fun to draw.

Comics are so full of amazing work. And I can't look at a drawing of a woman without thinking of, for instance, Wallace Wood and his amazing way of capturing beauty.

I don't do a comic book thinking there is a movie. I just want it to be as good a comic book as it can be.

I don't own an ounce of the work I've ever done on 'Batman,' and I still work on 'Batman.' I love the character, I think it's a lot of fun, and it's kind of fun to be in that ballpark every once in a while, where you're seeing a different crowd.

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane, Chandler, Jim Thompson, and noir movies like Fuller, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s, I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.

I realized that I was about to turn 30, and Batman was permanently 29. And I was going to be damned if I was older than Batman.

I think most things I read on the Internet and in newspapers are propaganda. Everyone from the 'New York Times' to Rupert Murdoch has a point of view and is putting forth their own propaganda. They're stuck with the facts as they are, but the way they interpret and frame them is wildly different.

I thought Daredevil was kind of cool because he couldn't do anything. I mean, he's blind. It wasn't that he could fly. His major power was an impediment. So I was intrigued. When I took over he was kind of like Spider-Man-lite, but I was able to project a lot of my Catholic imagery onto it. And I'd always wanted to do a crime comic.

I'm a comic book artist. So I think to myself, what do I like to draw? I like to draw hot chicks, fast cars and cool guys in trench coats. So that's what I write about.

I'm a spoilt brat. I thought I was just going to walk in and make movies. But I'd been my own boss for so long that all of a sudden to be facing a roomful of people who were niggling over every little scene... I just thought I'd go back and draw my comics and have a happy life.

In a way, 'Sin City's designed to be paced somewhere between an American comic book and Japanese manga. Working in black and white, I realized that the eye is less patient, and you have to make your point, and sometimes repeat it. Slowing things down is harder in black and white, because there isn't as much for the eye to enjoy.

In the comic-book world, there tends to be an overblown sense of tradition. Bad habits die hard. There are ways I think the form could work more effectively if we lost the bad habits that were created before we were born.

It was said Daredevil grew up in Hell's Kitchen, an amazing name for a neighbourhood. But that opened a Pandora's box of all the crime stuff I wanted to do. I borrowed liberally from Will Eisner's 'The Spirit' and turned 'Daredevil' into a crime comic.

The larger-than-life thing is definitely what I'm after. I've always drawn dark stories. Occasionally, I'll try a perfect hero, but it's a real stretch for me. I like 'em warts and all, and obsessive and weird.

We're constantly told that all cultures are equal, and that every belief system is as good as the next. And it led to a kind of - and generally, that America was to be known for its flaws rather than its virtues.

What's happened with computer technology is perfectly timed for someone with my set of skills. I tell stories with pictures. What I love about CGI is that if I can think it, it can be put on the screen.

When you have a brush in your hand, inking a beautiful woman is a lot like running your hands over her.

Where I would fault President Bush the most was that, in the wake of 9/11, he motivated our military, but he didn't call the nation into a state of war. And he didn't explain that this would take though a communal effort against common foe.

You do Batman right, and he's going to be popular. He's a great character. I was once asked by somebody if writing 'Batman' was like holding a Ming vase or something. And I said, 'No, it's like holding a big-ass diamond that you can't break. You can throw him against the ceiling, against the floor, anywhere, and you just can't break Batman.'

When you got a condition, it's bad to forget your medicine.

The Spartans were a paradoxical people. They were the biggest slave owners in Greece. But at the same time, Spartan women had an unusual level of rights. It's a paradox that they were a bunch of people who in many ways were fascist, but they were the bulwark against the fall of democracy.

The fundament of a superhero is the guy in tights saving innocent people from bad things. It's amazing how infrequently that seems to happen in superhero comics these days.

In the world of comic books, "troublemaker" means someone who has some sense of dignity.

Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

You should never meet your heroes. Paul Newman... I was so excited about meeting him, but he turned up in shell suit bottoms, slippers, and a jumper. He was just so worn out and old, he wanted to go home.

We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.

We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.

In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the victims and heroes of September 11th. As we commemorate the anniversary of 9-11, we must also remember that the threat is still very real today.

I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could.

A zeal for the defence of their country led these heroes to the scene of action, though with a few men to attack a powerful army of experienced warriors.

I got to work with one of my heroes, Johnny Depp, and to see how he goes about business, which was really inspiring for me at this stage in my career.

Heroes always make the right decision; I find that seldom happens in my life.

I've spent several years in Hollywood, and I still think the movie heroes are in the audience.

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.

Old myths, old gods, old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our mind, waiting for our call. We have need for them. They represent the wisdom of our race.

I liked the Beatles because there was so much melody. Jimi Hendrix is still one of my heroes.

Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse.