Everyone seems to see bleakness and despair in my books. I don't read them that way. I see myself as writing comic books, books about ordinary people trying to live ordinary, dull, happy lives while the world is falling to pieces around them.
Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw, it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.
It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears.
I don't see one as bring better or more literate than the other and there's a real buzz to not only writing about a character I love like Superman, but also writing something that kids can enjoy.
Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.
Kafka is still unrecognized. He thought he was a comic writer.
The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture....He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher.
I did not intend to write a funny book, at first. I did not know I was a humorist. I have never been sure about it. In the middle ages, I should probably have gone about preaching and got myself burnt or hanged.
The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths.
The reason I'm writing funny books is that I wish there were more.
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series also shows the potential of lighter fantastic fiction. I read the first, and listened to a tape of a later one, and it's fun.
