Jerry reversed the usual formula of the superhero who goes to another planet. He put the superhero in ordinary, familiar surroundings, instead of the other way around, as was done in most science fiction. That was the first time I can recall that it had ever been done.

In this drawing we just let our imagination run wild. We visualized Superman toys, games, and a radio show - that was before TV - and Superman movies. We even visualized Superman billboards. And it's all come true.

I did all the work at the beginning up until the point where I couldn't handle the increasingly heavy art production burden alone. I needed, and got, assistance.

I was mild-mannered, wore glasses, was very shy with women.

I think initially we wanted to use the first letter of the character's name. We thought S was perfect.

He was mostly leaping tall buildings in the beginning. There were cases where he would leap off a tall building or swoop down, and at that point he would look like he was flying, I suppose. It was just natural to draw him like that.

Not only that, but when I first met Joe, to my intense delight, he showed me that he was a collector. He was collecting some of the early Tarzan pages by Hal Foster, and, later, early Flash Gordons; and I found that we were both absolutely interested in the same type of thing.

Jerry and I always felt that the character was enjoying himself. He was having fun: he wasn't taking himself seriously. It was always a lark for him, as you can see in my early drawings.

Clark Kent, I suppose, had a little bit of Harold Lloyd in him.

In the beginning, we had a great deal of freedom, and Jerry wrote completely out of his imagination - very, very freely. We even had no editorial supervision to speak of, because they were in such a rush to get the thing in before deadline. But later on we were restricted.

Jerry picked up the technique of visualizing the story as a movie scenario; and whenever he gave me a script, I would see it as a screenplay. That was the technique that Jerry used, and I just picked it up.

Before I ever put anything on paper, Jerry and I would talk back and forth.

I drew a picture on the back of a calendar in pencil. In those days they used to give out free calendars, I had no art paper, so I took whatever else I could.

Jerry often says that Slam Bradley was really the forerunner of Superman, because we turned it out with no restrictions, complete freedom to do what we wanted; the only problem was that we had a deadline.

Those early sketches looked too cartoony; I really wanted to do detailed drawings - I was taking anatomy classes - but unfortunately I wasn't able to do it because of the time element.

And I agreed the feeling of action as he was flying or jumping or leaping - a flowing cape would give it movement. It really helped, and it was very easy to draw.

I had to produce a complete page - or two or three - in one day. I took a lot of pride in my work, and I hated to do a mediocre job. Evidently, some of the writers enjoyed my work best of all for that very reason.

Jerry reversed the usual formula of the superhero who goes to another planet. He put the superhero in ordinary, familiar surroundings, instead of the other way around, as was done in most science fiction. That was the first time I can recall that it had ever been done.

I came from Canada when I was about 10 years old, and our family settled in Cleveland, Ohio.

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating.

The fact that it's science fiction gives you the license to do anything you want to do.

For someone who writes fiction, in order to activate the imagination and the unconscious, it's essential to be free.

Fiction came quite a while later. I began with short stories and fiction for children.

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

I'd have been a filmmaker or a cartoonist or something else which extended from the visual arts into the making of narratives if I hadn't been able to shift into fiction.

For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

We were given clear concrete tools. The course did a great job demystifying the art of fiction writing and fostering confidence. The instructor brought complex concepts down to earth. I will miss coming here every week.

The biographies and autobiographies are on the whole more impressive than the fiction of the last two decades, but the freakish best sellers among them are least likely to withstand the test of time.

I have never been a critic of science fiction as a whole.

Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.

I think if I had been writing fiction, where the work is entirely dependent on the writer's creativity and the potential directions the narrative might take are infinite, I might have frozen.

I have always loved science fiction. One of my favorite shows is 'Star Trek.' I like the trips, where it drops my mind off, because they give you a premise and all of a sudden, you say, 'Oh!' and I'm fascinated by it.

I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.

For people who have no critical acumen, a state is a mythical entity, for those who think critically it is a rational fiction, created by man in order to facilitate human coexistence.

There is an element of autobiography in all fiction in that pain or distress, or pleasure, is based on the author's own. But in my case that is as far as it goes.

For the last 30 years our cinemas have been ruled by science fiction and horror. We've had some very good Fantasy films in that time period, but for my tastes I still haven't seen fantasy done to absolute perfection. That is the hope I have in this project.

I dig science fiction, though it was never really my thing.

I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world.

I'm not a great science fiction fan myself. I probably feel that way about Westerns. Like I used to play Cowboys and Indians, they can act out Will and the Robot.

A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.

In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts printed in black ink.

In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience.

We have escapist fiction, so why not escapist biography?

Like everybody at that age, I read an awful lot of pulp fiction. But at the same time, I also read quite a bit of history and read that as much for pleasure as part of a curriculum.

I think the thing is with a movie that has this much science fiction in it; you need characters who are more science fact, if you know what I mean, than they are human.

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

Yes, he wanted me to do Funny Games before, which I didn't want to do because the film was very theoretical - the way people experience violence on screen. There was very little space for fiction, it was more like a sacrifice for the actors than anything else.

I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.

People who love science fiction really do love sex.