Comic Book Quotes & Sayings

In a sense, comic books are frozen movies. If you look at a comic book, you are generally seeing the storyboard for a film. The great advantage of comic books, over the years, has been that, if they are frozen movies, they are not limited by budget. They are only limited by imagination. — Michael Uslan

I knew what I wanted to do when I set out. I knew that I wanted to write a book that told the story, obviously. I wanted it be comedy first, because I felt like there already had been childhood druggy stories that were very serious, and I felt that the unique thing here was that I was a comic and I could tell the story with some levity, and I have been laughing at these stories my whole life. — Moshe Kasher

I learned early Jack Kirby favorite movies were the Warner Brothers from the '30s. When you look at Jack Kirby's comic books, or at least when I do, I can make an instant connection. When he said he loved those movies it was like, "Of course." — Mike Royer

When I was 11 years old, I thought, 'All I really wanna be able to do is my own comic book,' and I'm doing it. I don't have any other real ambitions. I have nothing to conquer at all. — Chris Ware

If you can take something as ultimately frivolous [as a comic book] in the cosmic scale of things in the universe and what's important - people being born and dying and everything else that's gonna happen today - if one gay kid in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, reads an X-Men comic and feels for a second like maybe they're not entirely alone in the world - that's amazing. I'll take it. Whatever size victory that is, I will take. — Matt Fraction

I think jazz and comic books are probably the two uniquely American art forms. — Len Wein

A guide book is addressed to those who plan to follow the traveler, doing what he has done, but more selectively. A travel book, in its purest, is addressed to those who do not plan to follow the traveler at all, but who require the exotic or comic anomalies, wonders and scandals of the literary form romance which their own place or time cannot entirely supply. — Paul Fussell

If you're 25 years old dressed up like Superman at a comic book convention, that's great. If you're 78 and you're doing it, something's wrong. — Billy Bob Thornton

I don't subscribe to the school of thought that as a feature film producer I shouldn't dabble in television, web content, or even comic books ... — Adi Shankar

When I was a kid ... if I couldn't get a ride to the comic book store, I would walk a mile and a half each way to get the latest issues of 'Batman' and 'Spider-Man' and 'X-Men.' I could not choose one over the other. — Jarrett J. Krosoczka

It's not always the style of tattooing but the rather the subject matter that drives me. I love tattooing anything from mythology to comic book superheroes. — William Webb

I always had trouble with the Bruce Wayne in the comic book," Burton said. "I mean, if this guy is so handsome, so rich, and so strong, why the fuck is he putting on a Batsuit? — Glen Weldon

I was not a comic book reader, but my son is. My son wasn't really interested in reading books, which was hard for me because I love to read. It just didn't come naturally to my boy. So we kind of found comic books because they were fascinating to him. They were great stories. — Virginia Madsen

We have an agreement," she explained. "I watch nothing to do with a hobbit, Vulcan, or comic book hero, and in return, Dexter's not forced to sit through a foreign romance, a BBC production, or one my classic films. — Kristin Billerbeck

DISC is based on concepts created in 1928 by a psychologist named William Marston, who also created the comic book character Wonder Woman. That tells you pretty much all you need to know about DISC. Other — Dan Lyons

If she replaces her eyebrows with a Machiavellian triangle, paints her fingernails blue, and dyes her hair some color you'd see in a comic book it's not too attractive to me-because it's too familiar. Extremes aren't necessary. Even 'high fashion' frightens most men. When I have to wait in the dentist's office, I sometimes look at fashion magazines. To me, most of the models look like they have rickets or scoliosis of the spine. They look less like woman than caricatures. — Robert Stack

Marv's a guy you've got to be careful around. He doesn't mean any harm, but he causes plenty. — Frank Miller

On second thought, this might not be spurious. Computer science doctorates vs. Comic book sales — Tyler Vigen

Answer me immediately or I'll start cutting away everything that's pretty on you ... and then put it back. — Richard Finney

Canada is a country where the serious writers are hockey fans and readers of comic books. They don't play chess. — Louis Dudek

Why can't God just defeat the devil and get rid of evil? It's the same reason the comic book character can't get rid of his nemesis; then there's no story. — Bill Maher

As much as I'm enjoying stuff out here in Hollywood, I will always think of myself as a comic-book writer who does film and television, not a film and TV writer who occasionally does comics. — Brian K. Vaughan

Growing up I never got into comic books at all. I didn't have any inspiration for it. — Scarlett Johansson

All of the stuff I can't afford to do on a TV budget, I just put into the comic book because you're really only limited in a comic by your artist's imagination. — Marc Guggenheim

The latest spin on the Marvel comic-book hero delivers the popcorn goods. — Peter Travers

It's just that ... working on 'Green Lantern,' I saw how difficult it is to make that concept palatable, and how confused it all can be when you don't really know exactly where you're going with it or you don't really know how to access that world properly - that world comic book fans have been accessing for decades and falling in love with. — Ryan Reynolds

As an audience member, I live vicariously through the characters I watch or read about. There's something very relatable about comic-book characters. They're never perfect. They're flawed people put in extraordinary circumstances. — James Badge Dale

It's absolutely chilling to think that I've been working on a comic-book series called 'Optic Nerve' since I was sixteen. — Adrian Tomine

[A comic book writers' union] will never happen. Someone will always be willing to write Batman for free ... You sit at a bar with an editor at a show and you see 19 people come up and pitch ideas at them. If everybody writing the top 20 books all quit and demanded, 'Union now, union forever,' those 19 guys would be getting phone calls. There will never be a union. I think things are getting better - I bet things have never been so good - but there will never be a union. — Matt Fraction

We're sort of putting a slightly different spin on Steve Rogers. He's a guy that wants to serve his country, but he's not a flag-waver. We're reinterpreting, sort of, what the comic book version of Steve Rogers was. — Joe Johnston

They were growing up in the golden age of comic books. Comic strips, or "funnies," had begun appearing in the pages of newspapers in the 1890s. But comic books date only to the 1930s. They'd been more or less invented by Maxwell Charles Gaines (everyone called him Charlie), a former elementary school principal who was working as a salesman for the Eastern Color Printing Company, in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he got the idea that the pages of funnies that appeared in the Sunday papers could be printed cheaply, stapled together, and sold as magazines, or "comic books." In 1933, Gaines started selling the first comic book on newsstands; it was called Funnies on Parade. — Jill Lepore

Spiderman was my favorite comic book character growing up. I'm a geek, so I love the fact Peter Parker is into science. And I gravitate towards short guys. I'm 5' 9" now, but in junior high, I got picked on because I was 4' 8". — Josh Keaton

A lot of the ways that I like to approach comic books, or anything like that, is not just the book itself, but the fans of it, the readers, the world that exists around it as a cultural object. — Kate Beaton

To AMC's credit, I think what they saw was the show doesn't exist in the marketplace. They knew that there was a hunger for a martial arts show. They also knew that you have this strong tradition of martial arts cinema, so even though it's not branded by a novel or a comic book or an old movie or something, we do have the genre itself, which people love. — Alfred Gough

I'm not of a science background, I was never a comic book geek, and I was never a gamer. — Niall Matter

That evening I sat across from Jeremy Bulloch and Jacob at the dinner table. I watched as Jeremy, who seemed to speak Jacob's silent language fluently, drummed his fingers up and down on the edge of the table, as if playing a piano. A delighted Jacob mimicked the actor's actions. My throat filled with tears. I met Ben's eyes across the table, where he sat straight with pride next to his son. He was enjoying the show just as much as I was. Jacob was in his element, interacting with an actor from his favorite movie. The other men at the table were part of the set: Mike, the owner of the comic book store, who had made the entire thing possible, and the Mandalorin Mercs, new friends of the little boy who had
become one of their own, a comrade in distress. — Mary Potter Kenyon

I just love comic books. I've always loved comic book art, and I just think it's amazing. — Zayn Malik

I wasn't at all sure I could make that sort of leap into that sort of comic book reality. — Terence Stamp

The tremendous Jeremy Latcham from Marvel showed up with this one-of-a-kind animated encyclopedia about S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers. Coulson wasn't a part of the comic books, which is a singular thing about him that I thought would get me killed off very quickly, but luckily, it didn't. It just became a thing that I fit into, and they kept finding new and better uses for me. — Clark Gregg

(About "From Hell") The idea was to do a documentary comic about a murder. I concluded that there was a way of approaching the [Ripper] murders in a completely different way. I changed the emphasis from 'whodunit' to 'what happened'. I'd seen advertisements for Douglas Adams' book "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". A holistic detective? You wouldn't just have to solve the crime, you'd have to solve the entire world that that crime happened in. That was the twist that I needed. — Alan Moore

If I like hardcore straight-edge punk music, gentle psychedelic folk music, gangster rap, indie-rock with a lot of guitar pedals, and I find inspiration from all these things in different songs of mine, shouldn't I be allowed to make any of this kind of music that I want? And it's the same for the comic books, why should I only make autobiographical stories? Or only political stories? Or only superhero stories? Or only comedy stories? I am a bit creatively desperate, when I sit with a pen and paper I am desperate for ANY idea that makes me excited, I don't care what kind of idea it is! — Jeffrey Lewis

Comic book writers often suggest that women don't have the same dedication to the noble cause, because their need for love is often of equal or greater importance than their quest for justice. Superheroines want to fight crime, but want to settle down as well. If Mr. Right popped the question, a heroine could easily retire that mask and cape and settle down to life as a wife and mother. The implication is that no matter how powerful a woman is, she needs the love of a man to complete her. — Mike Madrid

I wasn't as big a comic book aficionado as some of my friends, but I definitely had some Batman comics. — Robin Lord Taylor

When I and the other young artists were working in comics, our work carried with it a particularly American slant. After all, we were Americans drawing and writing about things that touched us. As it turned out, the early work was, you might say, a comic book version of Jazz. — Joe Simon

The comic book world is so dangerous, you know what I mean? You say one thing and people - they're ravenous - they are very opinionated fans. But they're great fans. — Chris Evans

Comic-book pages are vertical, and movie screens are relentlessly horizontal. But it's all the same form. We use different tools, but we get the job done. I'm completely in love with CGI. It's great for conveying a cartoonist's sense of reality. — Frank Miller

I read the 'Deadpool' series back in the '90s. I'm not, like, a huge comic book reader, per say, though. I'll check out 'Archie' when I'm in the grocery line, but that's about it. — Ryan Reynolds

I grew up with comic books and cartoons and action movies. To find myself in the position to do work in these mediums is just an opportunity I couldn't have even asked for. It's just pure luck, really. — Hoon Lee

I'm never quite sure what I'm looking for in a comic book! It just jumps off the page somehow and hits you square between the eyeballs and you know that's the artist for the story. — William Katt

Usually the script is much more funny than the film turns out to be, in my case. The script is almost like a comic book but when you start making it, for some reason the film gets very serious. — Dagur Kari

I felt slightly snobby about the genre. My pre-conceived notion of the comic book world had been: "Oh, that's nothing that I need to worry about!" — Matthew William Goode

Not at all, I just don't understand how the Arch Alchemist became mortal all of a sudden."
"Because he split his soul into seven pieces and hid them all over Justice City," Toby retorted.
"You turned our comic book into a Harry Potter rip-off?" I spluttered. — Robyn Schneider

I don't know who they are[my characters] . They're entirely invented characters. Maybe that's how I've been able to write so many books, because there are no boundaries for me. I can write a completely fantastical story like "Swept Away" or "Blinded by the Light" and then a non-comic drama like "Chicxulub" or something like "Birnam Wood" that has autobiographical underpinnings. Why not? — T.C. Boyle

Whenever you do something that's original, not based on a comic book or a novel or an old movie or a franchise, you definitely learn a lot and for I think it was very gratifying to see the people embrace the world. — Alfred Gough

I had the 'War of the Worlds' comic book. I had lots of comic books. — Roky Erickson

When we think of design, we usually imagine things that are chosen because they are designed. Vases or comic books or architecture ... It turns out, though, that most of what we make or design is actually aimed at a public that is there for something else. The design is important, but the design is not the point. Call it "public design" ... Public design is for individuals who have to fill out our tax form, interact with our website or check into our hotel room despite the way it's designed, not because of it. — Seth Godin

What makes it worth it though, is I love drawing. I LOVE IT. I love making comics. I love starting a new page and buying new paper, ink and brushes. I love telling stories! I love the people I work with, I love the people I meet. I love thinking about the syntax and language of comics. I love esoteric discussions about the comic book industry. I love the opportunities I've had in life because of comics. The second I stop loving it I will find something else to do.
Comics are hard work. Comics are relentless. Comics will break your heart. Comics are monetarily unsatisfying. Comics don't offer much in terms of fortune and glory, but comics will give you complete freedom to tell the stories you want to tell, in ways unlike any other medium. Comics will pick you up after it knocks you down. Comics will dust you off and tell you it loves you. And you will look into it's eyes and know it's true, that you love comics back. — Becky Cloonan

Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus. — Bob Dylan

I love melodrama. I love the simple fact. When you read Euripides he's a page turner. It's like reading a Mexican comic book romance. — Guy Maddin

Oscar reties his bandana. 'You'll see, little bro. Soon you'll be taking European vacations with Jane and the rest of the Cobalt Empire - while Farrow, here, will be stuck at comic book conventions with the geek squad.' — Becca Ritchie

I think there are fans who love the genre to begin with, and there are fans who love the comic book to begin with, but fans of the comic book aren't necessarily fans of the genre. There are obviously a lot of those people who love both, but I'm not a huge fan of that genre, personally. — Steven Yeun

I was not a big comic-book reader. — Brad Bird

I wouldn't ever presume to say that I am a comic book fan. — Ray Stevenson

A comic book in mint condition is an offense against the multiverse. I only collect damaged comics with torn covers and missing pages. — Stephen Evans

When I was developing the [Daredevil] idea, we were really doing something closer to what was in the comic book. By that, I mean in terms of civilians in the street knew that superpowers were an everyday matter of fact. When it finally ended up at Netflix, they really decided to land it in the Marvel Universe that exists in the cinematic universe. That changes the story entirely. It was no longer about the other, which is what that metaphor was. It's really more about the character herself, which I love. — Melissa Rosenberg

Deadpool's' probably pretty proud of his comic book hero physique. — Cullen Bunn

At the same time, as you know, unless you are a comic book reader, Daredevil is not a known thing. — Avi Arad

I never go home and take out those business cards and go to those websites. But if there was a mini-comic here in my hand, I'd read it while I ate my lunch. I'm also probably one of the few remaining holdouts who hasn't consented to making the e-book versions of all my work, which is annoying to some of my publishers. — Adrian Tomine

I never was a big comic book fan. Obviously I'd heard them growing up from my friends who did read them, but I never was a big comic book reader. — Peter Dinklage

But you don't hire Ang Lee to do a typical children's movie. But it's such an interesting combination, whoever thought of getting Ang together with a comic book, that was just great. — Dennis Muren

Thor Odinson, that bastard, is apparently a hero in a "comic book" and "movie franchise" and they thought he was lying. — C. Gockel

All I thought about when I wrote my stories was, "I hope that these comic books would sell so I can keep my job and continue to pay the rent." Never in a million years could I have imagined that it would turn into what it has evolved into nowadays. Never. — Stan Lee

The thing she loved most about being Jewish was that you could step into a synagogue anywhere on earth and feel like you'd come home. India, Brazil, New Zealand, even Mars - if you could rely on Shalom, Spacemen!, the homemade comic book that had been the highlight of Simon's third-grade Hebrew school experience. — Cassandra Clare

Thanks to the comic book publishers. Batman and Captain Marvel were responsible for my learning to read at least a year before I showed up at school. They got me interested in writing. Started my first novel at about eight. The title: 'The Canals of Mars.' — Jack McDevitt

I stole comic books from my brother when I was a kid, but I was never like an avid fan. I can't claim to be like a comic book geek. — Anna Kendrick

Luckily, what you trade off in not being part of the comic book canon and not having some literature that you can use to your benefit, in terms of figuring out who you are, you gain in the ability to just be whoever you want to be. — Dallas Roberts

I love comic books. Since I was a kid, I've collected them. — James Mangold

As adults we choose our own reading material. Depending on our moods and needs we might read the newspaper, a blockbuster novel, an academic article, a women's magazine, a comic, a children's book, or the latest book that just about everyone is reading. No one chastises us for our choice. No one says, 'That's too short for you to read.' No one says, 'That's too easy for you, put it back.' No one says 'You couldn't read that if you tried
it's much too difficult.'
Yet if we take a peek into classrooms, libraries, and bookshops we will notice that children's choices are often mocked, censured, and denied as valid by idiotic, interfering teachers, librarians, and parents. Choice is a personal matter that changes with experience, changes with mood, and changes with need. We should let it be. — Mem Fox

I'm sure someone out there has a workable solution. But what do I know? I make comic books and write about jazz. I do know the difference between right and wrong, though. — Harvey Pekar

The entire Quran is a big joke. If it was not so violent, it would be the biggest comic book ever written. — Ali Sina

You know, I'm a big comic book fan. As a kid I used to collect them until there was a horrible mudslide in Hollywood and I lost my collection, but I was also at an early age the voice of 'Jonny Quest;' it was a cartoon; so I am kind of a latent fan boy. — Tim Matheson

He was the cleanest-cut comic-book schoolboy hero imaginable. — Joanne Harris

I've probably had my day in the sun. I think I've influenced a lot of comic book writers. — Harvey Pekar

But what I've also really liked about it is that it not only has Marvel set about ... if they just were slavishly trying to bring the comic books to life, literally, I don't the movies would work, because it's different to see something on screen in three dimensions with actors, and they kind of, I believe, are constantly trying to find a way to absolutely respect the source material and at the same time, transform it into something that works and that you believe on screen. — Clark Gregg

No matter how good a story is, if you're at a newsstand and you see a lot of comic books, you don't know how good the story is unless you read it. But you can spot the artwork instantly, and you know whether you like the artwork, whether it grabs you or not. — Stan Lee

I enjoy the art, and I enjoy drawing. I think my printing to this day looks like the printing right out of a comic book. — Nathan Fillion

Hart and Hope," I muttered. "If you're going to name your kids like that, of course they're going to think they live in a comic book. — Alyxandra Harvey

The comic book, and I've said it before, is a treasure trove. It's a grab bag. We certainly have characters and story lines that we really want to do - but to get there in a TV series, you have to take your time. Sometimes you can't get right to it. They're two different mediums. So we make it our own and really own the material. I like to think of it as an alternate universe. — Glen Mazzara

Gone was the insignificant, defective girl. I was some kind of f**king comic book vigilante & it felt amazing! — Ripley Patton

The great thing about having digital comics is that it is like having a comic-book shop on your digital device. It has turned comics from a destination buy to an impulse buy. — Jim Lee

When you say 'comic book' in America, people think of Mickey Mouse, and Archie. It has a connotation of juvenile. — Mark Hamill

I love comic book movies, and Marvel Comics obviously are the best. — Maria Menounos

In the 1950s we use to feel that television was taking away our comic readership; with today's exciting, powerfully visual movies I have to wonder about their effect on the kids' loyalty to the comic book medium all over again. — Joe Simon

I just trust the people involved. Marvel and DC for the last 16 years - is that 90 percent of the time it's incredible top talent. Like, this is what makes it different from the pre-2000 superhero movies. I would say, except Tim Burton and Richard Donner, it was generally, comic book movies were done by guys who weren't that into the material and people who didn't really respect the stuff. But as everything, whether it's Wolverine, X-Men, Avengers, Batman, all these things, it's just been done by top-tier people. I have total confidence that they'll continue that tradition of being great. — Mark Millar

I went into Hollywood and met Mike Aarons and went to Grantray-Lawrence Animation to work on the, by today's standards, extremely cheap and crude Marvel superheroes cartoons which basically consisted of taking stacks of the comic book art, taking parts of the art, pasting it down, extending it down into drawings and occasionally a new piece of art to bridge the comic book panels and limited animation and lip movement. — Mike Royer

In the sense that Watchmen references movies, comic books, pop culture in general. It knows it's a movie. I really do like movies that ride that fine line, the razor's edge between parody and supporting the fake movie part of the movie. — Zack Snyder

I think as soon as I figured out - and this must have been incredibly young - that comic books were made by humans, rather than being natural phenomenon likes trees or rocks, I just wanted to be one of the people who did that. So I was copying all kinds of cartoons that I was reading, comic books, and eventually learned how to draw cartoon books step-by-step and just, I don't know, I'm not an especially quick learner, but I sure was a dedicated one. — Art Spiegelman

You look like you belong in a bad comic book," I told him cheerfully.
"What did the Drakes do that's got you all pissy?"
"Pissy? Did you just call me pissy? — Alyxandra Harvey

I remember her, not a girl but the girl. The brains behind the all time top ten comic book vixens only wish they could conjure a a siren the likes of Susan Glenn, beneath my feet my own private earthquake registered an eight when Susan Glenn was near. In her presence all was beautiful before she arrived turned grotesque and in her shadows others became goblinesque, if she approached Susan Glenn she didn't walk she floated, accompanied by Pyrotechnics spectacals that left me feeling a foot tall. She embodied every desireable quality I have ever wanted. In my mind I was a peasant before a Queen. And so Susan Glenn and I were never a thing, if I could do it again, I'd do it differently. — Keifer Sutherland

The fact that we're at a point today where anybody, anywhere can put a comic book together and get it in front of the entire planet without spending a dime on printing and distribution - that's the good thing, and I think that's what's going to save [the comics industry]. These young people who have nothing to do with the industry we're in, just going out there and doing their own work and putting it out there, letting people respond to it. — Darwyn Cooke