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Pasko explains his quiet departure from comics roughly two years prior, driven by disillusionment with the superhero-only marketplace and his desire to work in anthology formats that no longer existed. He contrasts his constrained run on Swamp Thing — hampered by the Comics Code, page limits, and concerns over the Swamp Thing film — with Alan Moore's freer, celebrated approach, arguing the comparison is "apples and oranges." He reflects candidly on his satirical X-Men parody featuring thinly veiled versions of Claremont, Byrne, and Shooter, noting that those parodied complained through third parties rather than confronting him directly — a symptom, he says, of the industry's allergy to confrontation. He also critiques the "war" between commercial marketplace demands and Superman's mythology as the core problem for DC's flagship character.

In an unconventional interview conducted at Gordon's home in Northern California (where Yeates had originally planned to interview Gordon and Macklin), Yeates discusses his artistic philosophy — preferring illustrative, story-driven picture-making in the tradition of Hal Foster, Roy Krenkel, and Al Williamson over the cinematic violence he associates with Frank Miller. He recounts his training at the Kubert School's inaugural class alongside Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben, his early work assisting Al Williamson on Secret Agent X-9, and his year drawing Saga of the Swamp Thing — which he found grueling and philosophically incompatible with writer Marty Pasko's scripts. He discusses Timespirits as a labor of love for indigenous cultures and hints at wanting to write future issues himself, while expressing broader anxieties about violence in media and whether comics can be a meaningful positive force.