Welcome to Hell. Here's your accordion.
A lot of people think I'm going to be like someone who's stepped out of one of his own cartoons. And maybe I am. But I sure have a hard time analyzing it.
With my own cartoon, it was just me being goofy by myself, but when it comes to an animated film, you're working with 45 animators and assistant animators. It's a whole different ballgame.
Every week when my batch of weekly cartoons would go to FedEx, it felt like a small miracle. Then in a few days, it's 'Here we go again.'
I keep thinking someone's gonna show up and say, 'There's been a big mistake. The guy next door is supposed to be drawing the cartoon. Here's your shovel.'
The daily calendar seemed, to me, like a kind of cartoon black hole, and you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that that couldn't be sustained indefinitely. That's why I pulled the plug on that one after the '02 edition. Kind of a preemptive strike.
The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.
I've always thought the word cow was funny. And cows are sort of tragic figures. Cows blur the line between tragedy and humor.
I actually find a lot of parallels in jazz and cartooning.
My future plans are hazy, and I've yet to experience how much cartooning is in my blood and therefore how much I'll miss it. But I have some other interests, especially in music, and I will probably take the opportunity to delve into those things more deeply.
Cartooning was a good fit for me. And yet now, years later, I almost never think about it.
I didn't feel that my identity was caught up in being a cartoonist, and that if it stopped I'd stop.
I never sat down and said, you know, what the world needs is a good, sick cartoonist.
Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.
I remember one time watching a bird snatch a dragonfly out of midair and thinking, 'Gee, life can come to an end - crunch! - just like that.'
People try to look for deep meanings in my work. I want to say, 'They're just cartoons, folks. You laugh or you don't.' Gee, I sound shallow. But I don't react to current events or other stimuli. I don't read or watch TV to get ideas. My work is basically sitting down at the drawing table and getting silly.
Great moments in science: Einstein discovers that time is actually money.
I think one thing that's important to maintain is a sense of fear, always doubting yourself... a good dose of insecurity helps your work in some ways.
People get very passionate about saving the whale, but when something like a Florida indigo snake is endangered there are not a lot of people out there holding up placards.
This was more than just a cow - this was an entire career I was looking at.
