I think the reason I choose the comic approach so often is because it’s harder, therefore affording me the opportunity to show off.
If you’d rather go to the football game than read a comic, that’s fine. I’d rather do both.
I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that’s the tougher job. He has to set up the jokes in just the right way.
What we’re trying to do is take these words and soften them. I’m an African-American comic. I use the b-word in my act.
A lot of recent comic book adaptations have gone two ways: either they’re striving for some kind of realism, like ‘Iron Man’ or ‘The Dark Knight,’ or they’re very stylised and gritty, like ‘Sin City’ and ‘300.’
Comic Con has become a very relevant venue for all films.
I didn’t expect ‘Scott Pilgrim’ to be successful. I just made this weird comic to entertain my friends.
I was an enormous fan of Dan Slott’s run, and John Byrne’s run was a big deal for me. I found Slott’s version of ‘She-Hulk’ first, and then I went back and looked up some of the older stuff because I liked it so much. And it was so good. It was perfect. It was my perfect comic book at the time that I found it.
I wanted to make an explicitly educational comic that taught readers the concepts I covered in my introductory programming class. That’s what ‘Secret Coders’ is. It’s both a fun story about a group of tweens who discover a secret coding school, and an explanation of some foundational ideas in computer science.
I remember, when I was an up-and-coming comic, how annoyed I would be when the famous guys would show up and just take everyone’s spots.
People used to think I was just a shouty comic but I was doing stuff about Sartre.
When I write a screenplay – and I think it’s one of the reasons why it was frustrating for me just to be a screenwriter – I’m not thinking of it in terms of words on a page; I’m thinking in terms of visual images – basically, a comic book. I’m thinking of it in a series of shots.
If you record the world honestly, there’s no way people can stop being funny. A lot of fiction writing doesn’t get that idea, as if to acknowledge it would trivialize the story or trivialize human nature, when in fact human nature is reduced and falsified if the comic aspects are not included.
Every time I think about writing, comedy doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I can play comedy, but I don’t think in terms of comic dialogue.
You look for comic relief in difficult times.
If I love a comic but they have an off night, who am I to say they should have taken out this or added that? It doesn’t work that way… I have no interest in hurting people’s feelings.
Metal guys are huge nerds. A good percentage of them are either horror or sci-fi or comic book or fantasy nerds.
It always amazes me that Japanese comics have, like, 200 pages. How do they do that? They’re fat books; it’s a whole different kind of comic that’s very close to their films. So I’m drawing from that history and bringing it here – bringing it to Katana.
I had no desire to be a stand-up comic until I decided to do it.
I’ve conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I’ve encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV.
Kids don’t even read comic books anymore. They’ve got more important things to do – like video games.
What interested me in doing ‘Dragonball’ was that it’s a huge comic book series that has built a great fan base, and it’s a great action movie!
I believe that a good comic script can succeed despite being drawn badly, but that a bad script can’t be saved by good art. Of course, great writing and great illustration makes for a great comic 100 percent of the time.
I’m sort of killing two birds with one stone here, getting to write for ‘True Blood’ and being able to put myself in a comic at the same time.
I never was a big comic book fan. Obviously I’d heard them growing up from my friends who did read them, but I never was a big comic book reader.
Twitter is the most amazing medium for a comedy writer. I can’t get in every idea I want on the show no matter how hard I try to bully the other writers, so it’s a way of me getting out other comic ideas and immediately getting feedback.
I started writing when I was 9 years old. I was like this weird kid who would just stay in my room, typing little funny magazines and drawing comic strips.
I thought I had more of a European sense of humour than the average American comic.
I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.
I always loved comic books when I was growing up, and Spider-Man was definitely a character I gravitated towards because I loved the story of an average teenager having super powers.
Anyway, in the mid 80’s I was spending a fortune buying old Golden Age books from the late 30’s and 40’s and I was making personal appearances at a lot of sci fi and comic book conventions all around the country here so that I could find books for my collection.
I’m a stand-up comic. I’m always doing dates; it’s just that, if I’m working on a project or I’m busy, I can’t get out on the road or book any shows. Since the beginning of my career, I’m usually out for at least 10-15 dates throughout the year. If I have time, then I try to get at least 30-40 dates.
Even in the depths of dreadful situations, there’s usually something rather comic, or something you can laugh about afterwards, at least. So, I do look for the comedy in those things.
If you’re a comic, you don’t have a rehearsal room; you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything. I’ve written lots of material, but how do you memorise 90 minutes? That’s one hell of a long speech. I’ve always had problems with that.
The nice thing with Shakespeare from a modern point of view is that a lot of stuff that was tragic for him can read as comic for us.
I find it hard to get enthusiastic about hotels because, as a touring comic, I spend a lot of time in them.
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.
You know, I think whatever a comic talks about onstage is all they talk about offstage.
I sent in tons of submissions and proposals, and I collected my share of form rejection letters. Eventually, I found myself working at a comic book shop, where I met my future collaborator Brian Hurtt.
There have been times when I played more than others, but I’ve been a road comic for a quarter of a century, so I’ve always played golf on the road because you have a lot of time to kill.
My hero in comic books is Jack Kirby: ‘Spider-Man,’ ‘Fantastic Four,’ ‘Captain America,’ Marvel Comics. He was really the basis for Marvel Comics.
I love comic book movies, and Marvel Comics obviously are the best.
NBC anchor Brian Williams is a standup comic in disguise.
I don’t really find things funny unless they’re deeply tragic at the same time. I think if you’re funny just for the sake of being funny, it’s just frivolous nonsense. To me, all the best comic plays have been written about really serious and rather bleak things.
There aren’t any concrete steps to becoming a comic.
It seems so absurd to get really mad with a cartoonist over a comic strip. It’s sort of like getting in a fight with a circus clown outside your house. It’s not going to end well.
Dennis the Menace was probably the most realistic comic book ever done. No space aliens ever invaded!
I’ve always had a soft spot for comic books.
As it turned out, if you look at the history, everything in superhero comic books pretty much lies between Superman and Batman: Superman being the greatest superhero there is, and Batman being the one of the few superheroes who has no superpowers and is, in fact, not a superhero.
I’ve never really been a big sci-fi guy or a big comic book guy.
In my office in Florida I have, I think, 30 manuscript piles around the room. Some are screenplays or comic books or graphic novels. Some are almost done. Some I’m rewriting. If I’m working with a co-writer, they’ll usually write the first draft. And then I write subsequent drafts.
I see myself as a comic but the acting helps sell tickets for gigs.
Comic books were just the means for me to tell the story.
And what’s interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.
At the same time, as you know, unless you are a comic book reader, Daredevil is not a known thing.
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.
The comic edge of ‘Ghostbusters’ will always be the same. It’s still treating the supernatural with a totally mundane sensibility.
Alternative cartoonists have to rely on comic book stores to get their stuff in the hands of readers.
To get syndicated as a comic strip artist is as likely as winning the lottery.
I am a big fan of the web comic ‘Strong Female Protagonist,’ illustrated by Molly Ostertag.
At this very moment I’m behind on a compilation that Slave Labor is doing for Free Comic Book Day.
I think if you do something effectively whether you’re the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you’ll get asked to play that part again.
