You don’t have journalists over there anymore, what they have is public relations people. That’s what they have over in America now. Two-hundred and fifty thousand people in public relations. And a dwindling number of actual reporters and journalists.
When I come up against the real world, I just vacillate.
Hey kids, while you’re out smashing the state keep a smile on your lips and a song in your hearts.
I still can’t spend a lot of money on records at collector prices. There’s something in me that just won’t allow me to do that. But I will trade my artwork, which I know is worth thousands of dollars.
You can’t make everybody love you. It’s an exercise in futility, and it’s probably not even a good idea to try.
I didn’t invent anything; it’s all there in the culture; it’s not a big mystery. I just combine my personal experience with classic cartoon stereotypes.
Everything that is strong in me has gone into my art work.
I draw the line at some things. Some things I won’t do for any amount of money. Like for instance, there’s a couple of CEOs of very large corporations that offered me lots of money to do special pictures for them. And I just refused to do that. Even if it was a million dollars I wouldn’t do it.
I knew I was weird by the time I was four. I knew I wasn’t like other boys. I knew I was more fearful. I didn’t like the rough and tumble most boys were into. I knew I was a sissy.
There’s many heroic underappreciated investigative journalists.
The comics are where all the crazy subconscious stuff comes out.
They can buy talent. You can’t buy it for yourself, but you can buy other people’s talent to serve your purposes. And once an artist does that, he becomes like a plaything of the rich.
The French hold onto their traditions. I was always so alienated in America. My work was this constant reaction to that.
Some of the wealthy collectors have paid lots of money for artwork that I already did, but I didn’t do it with the intention of catering to them. I think part of the reason my work is attractive to people like that is because it doesn’t cater to them.
I felt so painfully isolated that I vowed I would get revenge on the world by becoming a famous cartoonist.
At least I hate myself as much as I hate anybody else.
I was a child of American popular culture. All I did as a kid was what I could get at the local supermarket or the dime store. Nothing else was seen. Plus what was on television, or the movie theatre. That was it.
When I listen to old music, that’s one of the few times that I actually have a kind of love for humanity.
The fine-art world knows very little about the cartoon world.