JAMIE HEWLETT

I grew up doubting myself. It was a very spotty, frustrating, worrying time.

I need to find a way of retaining creative control.

I used to love comic books, and I love American comedy, and neither are afraid to tackle big themes.

You can write and write, but if you don't have someone who can nail that character, it's never going to live.

I'm always having ideas. I'd like to continue being able to realise the ideas I have.

I want to do stuff that excites me and is enjoyable.

I am in that position where I finish something, it goes out, and I'm onto the next thing. I finish it, it goes out, onto the next thing.

I start with an idea in my head. I sketch it out quickly as a line drawing, using pencil. It never comes out quite right - usually a bit better than my mental picture.

I don't like collaborating too much.

I see the 'z' in 'Humanz' as referring to robots, AI, programming, brainwashing, indoctrination. And it's a question to us: are we human, or are we humanz? Have we lost the ability to think for ourselves? Do we just believe what we're told? That's how I see it.

I'm much more at home with Daffy Duck than I am with a real person.

I'm all about doing things myself because I find it hard to trust other people. Not trust, but I know exactly what I want to do, and I know exactly how it's supposed to look.

The more you draw, the better you get.

When a picture is done, I'm not concerned with it anymore; I'm on to the next thing.

I took a lot of influences from Studio Ghibli, which is the Japanese animation studio that made 'Spirited Away' and 'Castle in the Sky.' They're like the Japanese version of Disney - but without all the schmaltz.

My mum was into pottery and embroidery, very artistic, and she knew some people from the college, which I think was how I got into it. My dad, who was a head-hunter, was also an incredible artist, and when he was very young, he was a really good cartoonist.

Some comic artists I've known are better than most contemporary artists with work hanging in Tate Modern.

That was always my dream as a kid: to draw comic books.

When I'm working on something, if I went to an exhibition of an artist I respect, then I usually come home quite depressed and look at what I'm doing and throw it all away and start again.

I can't see anybody wanting to go to 'Tank Girl: The Musical!'

The art world's quite elitist. I tend to skirt around that world.

If you're going to pretend to be somebody you're not - which is the whole point of being a rock star - then why not just invent fake characters and have them do it all for you?

It's not that I never do interviews or that I find them traumatic. It's just that I'm basically not that comfortable doing them.

Look at someone like Kanye West - ego is the death of a lot of art. To believe in yourself that much is to stop being an artist.

I don't go to enough exhibitions, purely because it intimidates me.