Quotes from Jamie Hewlett

I love to draw and paint - that's what makes me happy.

I don't like collaborating too much.

That was always my dream as a kid: to draw comic books.

My mum was into pottery and embroidery, very artistic, and she knew some people from the college, which I think was how I got into it. My dad, who was a head-hunter, was also an incredible artist, and when he was very young, he was a really good cartoonist.

I need to find a way of retaining creative control.

Look at someone like Kanye West - ego is the death of a lot of art. To believe in yourself that much is to stop being an artist.

When I'm working on something, if I went to an exhibition of an artist I respect, then I usually come home quite depressed and look at what I'm doing and throw it all away and start again.

Some comic artists I've known are better than most contemporary artists with work hanging in Tate Modern.

If you're going to pretend to be somebody you're not - which is the whole point of being a rock star - then why not just invent fake characters and have them do it all for you?

I don't go to enough exhibitions, purely because it intimidates me.

I'm much more at home with Daffy Duck than I am with a real person.

I'm always having ideas. I'd like to continue being able to realise the ideas I have.

I see the 'z' in 'Humanz' as referring to robots, AI, programming, brainwashing, indoctrination. And it's a question to us: are we human, or are we humanz? Have we lost the ability to think for ourselves? Do we just believe what we're told? That's how I see it.

I have a problem with making eye contact with people, or with holding eye contact.

I grew up doubting myself. It was a very spotty, frustrating, worrying time.

If you're having fun, if you're working with people you love working with, then the results are always going to be exciting.

I used to love comic books, and I love American comedy, and neither are afraid to tackle big themes.

I start with an idea in my head. I sketch it out quickly as a line drawing, using pencil. It never comes out quite right - usually a bit better than my mental picture.

It's not that I never do interviews or that I find them traumatic. It's just that I'm basically not that comfortable doing them.

My parents weren't very good at keeping things, which is why I treasure my own sons' work so much now - I don't want to lose anything.

The art world's quite elitist. I tend to skirt around that world.

I love zombie films.

You can write and write, but if you don't have someone who can nail that character, it's never going to live.

When a picture is done, I'm not concerned with it anymore; I'm on to the next thing.