It's just hard not to listen to TV: it's spent so much more time raising us than you have.

I gave away 'Life in Hell' when it was a little 'zine, and sold it at record stores for $1, and I knew from the time that I first did it that I would continue to do it, because it was fun.

When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time.

Back in high school, I wrote a novel about a character named Bart Simpson. I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling 'Bart,' and Bart sounds kind of like bark - like a barking dog.

We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff.

Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked.