Cliff Chiang Quotes

Cartoonists' dirty secret is that we tend to come up with stories that involve things that are really fun to draw.

When I realized that people actually wrote comics, that it was a job people could do, I thought, 'Gee, these things are only 17 pages long! I could probably finish one of those and find out whether I suck before I've spent five years of my life on it.' In stumbling into comics that way, I discovered that I loved the form.

I never really read comics. I bought them, and I would draw them.

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.'

All the pictures I could never do, I'll do it in comics. All the comics I do are the pictures I could never do.

A comic can be aesthetically beautiful. I think they captured it beautifully and accurately.

Most comic scriptwriters are very bad. The artists are good, but the writers are so bad.

I'm sure that no matter what I'm involved in, I'll always be doing comics, at least in some minor capacity.

That's the biggest part of doing comics: You have to create stuff that makes you want to get out of bed every morning and get to work.

The thing with the comics is that you have license to go down every alley your brain can think of.

A lot of times, the idea of a comic will be, 'Wouldn't it be cool if you...' But instead of doing it, I'll draw a comic about it.

I've always liked writing. Even when I was in art school and thought I was going to be a gallery painter, I liked to pair my artwork with writing. And so that naturally led to drawing comics.

I didn't know how to write comics. I had to teach myself.

Writing and drawing comics for the sheer joy of it - that's true bliss.

I am a lifelong Moebius geek. The European approach is perfect, the art is beautiful, and the storytelling is fantastic.

In a perfect world, I'd like to start running comics for kids - by kids.

It's not movies and it's not "fine art." The beauty of a comic is that it's clear, direct communication. My work is getting simpler and more cartoony because I'm much more interested in communication now than in any illustrative value.

There are certain comics that just seem like they have this perfect balance between dialogue and image that I can't not read. I'll want to save it for later, and the next thing I know, I'm reading it. That's what I'm kind of trying to do with my comics.

Comic books themselves are getting more literate. And there are people who are screenwriters and television writers and novelists who are writing for the comics, for some reason, they love doing it and some of the art work in the comics, I mean it rivals anything you'll see hanging on the walls of museums, they're illustrations more than drawings and all the people are discovering this and they're turning on to it.

No offense to real jobs, but comics seemed a lot more fun.

I've always been an enormous fan of comic books and anything that captures the real in a surreal environment.

I draw plays every day.

I don't like seeing talented storytellers ruled by fear.

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.

I am one of the lucky ones, to work with comic giants.