A lot of the fiction I read growing up was post-war American, and not all of it centers on Manhattan, but around people of the Mad Men generation, people like John Cheever and, in more modern times, Don DeLillo, who I always mention.

I did throw a lot of eggs into one basket, as you do in your teenage years - 'I am buying these records, I am wearing this'. I did quite a bit of that. You have to do it, wear your stupid shoes, wear your stupid hair.

You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.

One thing that's coming up a lot is: are you as grumpy as you appear from this Black Books thing.

I'm not opposed to putting myself in danger for meaningless comedy.

If I were given a choice between two films and one was dark and explored depraved, troubled or sick aspects of our culture, I would always opt for that over the next romantic comedy.

We just sort of thought a Web series would be a cool thing to be able to send to our parents to show them that we were, in fact, actually doing comedy.

The Internet has done nothing but good for comedy all around. Comedians no longer have to rely on TV execs and club owners deciding if they are funny or not.