Ryan North

“I spent age 6-12 basically thinking about 'Back to the Future' all the time, so I think it's probably had a pretty huge influence on me and the way I think and write.”

“To answer your question as honestly as I can, I've wanted since I was very little to not have to worry about money. I've never been poverty-level poor (I mean, there's been years where I've been officially beneath the poverty line, but that wasn't poverty: that was being a student and living the Student Lifestyle), but I've been in a place where you know you can't afford a better-quality food, where you can't do certain things because of money, and I'd prefer not to have those problems if I can. I sort of have troubles with money in general, with how it determines so much of our lives but with how we all try to ignore it, but I would like to be (and stay) in a place where I can pick up some new comics and games and not worry about how much they cost.This is terrible; you're asking me where I want to be in the future, what I want my life to be like, and the only thing I can tell you is "Man, all I know is I don't want to be POOR.”

“I do actually do good work! And it's hard! And I'm worth it!”

“I used to worry that I had a finite supply of ideas, that I should hold on to each of them in case it was the last. But then I talked to other cartoonists, and I realized ideas are cheap; you can have a million ideas. The tricky part is the follow-through: making good ones work, making the best out of the raw material!”

“Everything I write should have lasers. That's my #1 rule.”

“Social media has been a great change. It's also a great way to disseminate comics and market them.”

“I actually put Jubilee in 'Squirrel Girl.' I made it a priority.”

“The nice thing about Squirrel Girl is that she's smart, and she looks for situations that don't necessarily involve punching people all the time.”

“It's good to have hobbies.”

“The nice thing with Shakespeare from a modern point of view is that a lot of stuff that was tragic for him can read as comic for us.”

“I can see people sharing my comics and talking about them, which is very gratifying.”

“For me personally, I get to be a cartoonist, because my comic would never survive in print. Maybe one in 100 people would like it, but online, I can gather that one percent all in one place.”

“There's tons of people doing awesome things with comics online - I'm just one dude!”

“If you're going to be adapting something across media, you should at least have the moves that people want you to hit and that you want to hit.”

“With 'Machine of Death,' we became the #1 bestselling book on Amazon in a single day.”

“Librarians are awesome; I don't care who knows it.”

“I am a big proponent of the pal-centric lifestyle.”

“There may be this hidden, hate-filled community of online cartoonists, but if there are, I haven't found it yet. We're all generally pretty nice people, it turns out!”

“The first mp3 I downloaded, which I guess was illegal, was a symphonic rendering of the Super Mario Brothers 1-1 theme song. It was great. I was like, 'This is blowing MIDI files out of the water. This is the future, right here.'”

“You can do so much crazy stuff with books that isn't necessarily being done. That's how culture stays alive - by doing new things with it.”