However, if I can expand this to Top Cow or Avatar I'm helping the sales, however small, on my Marvel books because I'm almost certain to pick up some new readers.

The books are all very, very different so the publishers really had to be different too.

I didn't break into comics to write fairytales or crime comics.

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.

I don't see one as bring better or more literate than the other and there's a real buzz to not only writing about a character I love like Superman, but also writing something that kids can enjoy.

It's been the most creatively liberating thing I've ever done and so I'm bringing some of that mad enthusiasm to Marvel for the next couple of years as they let me loose on some Marvel Universe titles you'll be hearing about soon.

Likewise, I see no shame in writing Captain America or Wolverine.

I spent as much time writing proposals in '98 and '99 as I did writing scripts.

I didn't want the headache of having a publisher reviewing everything I wrote in advance.

Being the first to do something like this also registers a lot of attention that the line might not have gotten if all four books had just appeared from one company.

At the moment, I have it planned as a six or seven year experiment, but the books will only ever appear in bursts like this every couple of years and only with the best quality artists.

We've had really good mainstream publicity for these books and both Wanted and Chosen were snapped up as movie deals before each series even ended so I'm honestly just pinching myself.

Artists, no matter how good their intentions, are always slower than they think.

The trick was really finding the appropriate publisher for each of the projects I'd devised.

Wanted has gone into second, third and fourth printings of the individual issues and the north American printings of Wanted #1 are now close to 100,000.

Their argument, and I think it's a correct one, is that they'll make more money from the trades and the hardcovers if nobody messes with the creative team.

I think American audiences are quite interesting in that they can handle almost any amount of violence, but the moment the violence becomes sexual violence it immediately becomes an issue.

I'm honestly as happy writing Superman Adventures as I am writing Wanted.

The breadth of the potential readership is also a factor.

I'd love to do something else for Avatar after this.

However, if I can expand this to Top Cow or Avatar I'm helping the sales, however small, on my Marvel books because I'm almost certain to pick up some new readers.

The animated books pay the lowest rates at the Big Two and you can forget about royalties.

Marvel books also feed into the smaller publishers and the fact that this is happening in the same month we're launching Ultimate Fantastic Four is no coincidence.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I never buy magazines, I never even buy books.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.

As a strong supporter of our 2nd Amendment rights, I believe tougher enforcement of our nation's existing gun laws must be done before any more laws are enacted and put on the books.