Bryan Lee O'Malley

When I was in the middle of the 'Scott Pilgrim' series, and it was slowly becoming more popular, though still not financially solvent, I had this real bratty instinct to turn around and do something super arty and dark. I felt dismissed by comics culture, stuck in between the artcomix world and the nerdcomix world, and I was cranky about it.

Monkey Island 2' was a huge game for me. It kind of taught me all about comedy.

I guess I've always been kind of obsessed with food. I always liked drawing food, and I always liked stories - I think I probably just read somewhere that stories are better if someone's eating in them. I don't know where that came from, but it really stuck, and I always try to put food in.

I think it's natural as you get to the end of your twenties to start thinking about what you could have done differently - whether they went well or whether they went terribly.

I've certainly played games that provoked a real emotional response or serious thought processes.

I don't tend to cast roles in my head because I spend so much time with these characters and the drawings that they're complete in themselves, you know what I mean?

There were times over the years when I wanted to take a break from 'Scott Pilgrim,' or even just stop doing 'Scott Pilgrim,' when I was feeling down or whatever.

For Hollywood to make 'Spider-Man,' only to redo the movie a couple years later, just boggles the mind. To recast 'The Incredible Hulk' for a third time? I don't get it.

I'm too young to have experienced firsthand the '70s rock, but when I was in high school, me and my friends were super into Neil Young. That was the grunge era, and he was considered cool again.

After a long period of not drawing, you have to, like, relearn how to draw. It's not very fun.

Tumblr culture and the whole reappropriation-without-context thing are a double-edged sword in that they both raise awareness of my work and also kind of devalue it at the same time.

I've always been open to the idea of an adaptation that does its own thing, that freely diverges from the original as long as it's true to the spirit.