When I was in the business as a young performer, it was a recognised fact that when you got to 60 you were out, because there'd be a new crop of comics coming up all the time, every 10 years or so.
My reason for getting into the film business was a Spider-Man comic called 'The Night Gwen Stacy Died' when I was a kid; it changed my life.
If I get a chance to write a comic book or do a voice in an Adult Swim show, I do it. It's much more fulfilling to me and I get to work with people who I'm a fan of.
I can go to a movie theater and watch a movie I was in with an audience... but with television, the opportunity to meet the fans at Comic Con or any other situation, it's a chance to enter that circle; it's that sharing.
I'm taking a lot of my favorite artists, different people, my favorite music and marrying that with what I do as a comic. It's very collaborative, arty, fun and cool.
I remember 9/11; we had 'Comics Come Home' about a month after those events. That night, even the comedians were concerned. Would the audience be ready to laugh? It was a release for everyone.
My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.
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.
I've always been very forward-looking, and it was actually kind of difficult to turn my gaze backwards to look at comics history.
People get really nuts around cars. They get angry at cars, they get angry at their car, they get angry at people driving in cars; there's something really comical about that, about automobiles.
To drive a car in rural America is freedom. Before I had a car, I'd never seen a rock and roll show, I'd never seen a comic or a show.
The comic book world is so dangerous, you know what I mean? You say one thing and people - they're ravenous - they are very opinionated fans. But they're great fans.
But you don't hire Ang Lee to do a typical children's movie. But it's such an interesting combination, whoever thought of getting Ang together with a comic book, that was just great.
I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.
My absolute favorite part of Comic-Con is seeing, like, a 'Mass Effect' guy hanging out with a 'Sailor Moon,' and they're just having a great time.
Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.
When I was a kid, there were these great comic books called 'Tales From The Crypt' and 'The Vault of Horror.' They were gruesome. I discovered them in the barbershop and thought they were fabulous.
I would like to do more dramas when I find a good role that will allow me to politely upset people's expectations of me as a comic actor.
I don't think anything connects with an audience as deeply as a long-form serialized drama, and much as I love television, I've always found a good ongoing comics series to be much more immersive.
I'm not a really big comic book person. I know the typical ones - 'Spider-Man' and 'Wonder Woman' and 'Storm' and that stuff. But don't quiz me, because I'm not good at things like that.
Comedy is the most difficult. Comic timing is something which you either have it in you, or you don't. You have to have a good sense of humour to be able to understand it. A split second can make you lose the punch.
