John Updike Quotes

When I put together a graphic novel, I don't think about literary prose. I think about storytelling.

Considering my specialization in architecture, I'm not surprised that the first graphic novel to thoroughly engage, not to say captivate, me is Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor's 'Batman: Death by Design.'

I think with something like 'Watchmen' you can genuinely call that a graphic novel because it has the weight and the intent of a proper novel and it also is the complete story.

Nick Cardy's work helped define some of the things we see in comics today and take for granted. He broke out of the mold in terms of covers and layout and created a truly interactive experience for the reader that directly points back to his time with the Eisner studio.

Comics are so full of amazing work. And I can't look at a drawing of a woman without thinking of, for instance, Wallace Wood and his amazing way of capturing beauty.

One of the key characteristics of the comic book medium is that it is not brought to life by just one voice.

For me, who loves to draw and who loves to write and cannot choose between one or the other, the comic is the best form.

When I and the other young artists were working in comics, our work carried with it a particularly American slant. After all, we were Americans drawing and writing about things that touched us. As it turned out, the early work was, you might say, a comic book version of Jazz.

Gene Colan was like no other artist of his generation. His ability to create dramatic, multi-valued tonal illustrations using straight India ink and board was unparalleled.

But I couldn't draw as fast as she requested. Thus, I tried to create the worst abomination of a comic that I could, so as to make her not want comics anymore. That abomination, my friends, was Happy Noodle Boy.

People underestimate the complexity of comic books.

Within the macho-melodrama tropes of the superhero genre, it's fair to say 'Watchmen' stands out for its rich entertainment, its darkness, and its lurid pleasures. Its vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate.

I'm never quite sure what I'm looking for in a comic book! It just jumps off the page somehow and hits you square between the eyeballs and you know that's the artist for the story.

It's absolutely chilling to think that I've been working on a comic-book series called 'Optic Nerve' since I was sixteen.

The most impactful comics that I've read are the ones where the artists swung for the bleachers and tried to immerse you in their world.

If I were to take five comic books, from four different publishers and Marvel, and lay them out, even if you didn't know the characters, you would be able to take a look at that Marvel comic and go, 'That's Marvel.' There's something unique about the way the story is presented.

I love writing novels, but there is something deeply invigorating about the comic-book medium.

'Daredevil: Season One' is kind of in-between. On the one hand, sure, it's a graphic novel. But on the other, it's beholden to existing continuity, and we're still telling the story in issue-length chapters. So it's not that different to writing a miniseries, and I've done plenty of those.

When I started in the comic book business, 'Art Of' books were strictly the provenance of the greats, like Rembrandt and Da Vinci. But times change, and so do attitudes. Now the comic is considered an art form, and I hope 'A Life in Words and Pictures' contributes a little to that art form's history.

I'm kind of a graphic novel ambassador.

Comics are actually a lot more difficult to read than I thought they would be. After my second 'Deadpool' comic, I kind of gave up.

One of my favorite comic books of all-time is the graphic novel 'God Loves, Man Kills.'

There are some short stories in R. Crumb comics that are just wonderful and touch me in ways no other comics do.

I had seen this comic called 'Invincible' created by two people I had never heard of before, Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker, and I was a huge fan. 'Invincible' probably had five or six issues under the belt, and the book was so impressive to me, I was surprised that I had never heard of them before. It's like they came out wholly formed.

When 'Watchmen' was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a watershed in comics history. The 12-part serial comic book was widely acclaimed as a genius subversion of the superhero genre, and it did much to popularize comics to adults.