On your nightstand now:
I don't have a nightstand. I have a disjointed pile of history, nonfiction, fiction, art books and an old paperback about people who spontaneously combust, which I think can qualify as any of those aforementioned genres.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Where the Wild Things Are
Your top five authors:
Today, May 19, 2011, I'd have to say:
Crockett Johnson
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Michael Chabon
E.B. White
Mark Twain
P.G. Wodehouse
Your top five artists:
N.C. Wyeth
Beatrix Potter
Maxfield Parrish
Glen Baxter
Winsor McCay
Van Gogh
Book you've faked reading:
I enjoy pretending that I've read The Collected Works of Sarah Palin, and then make up insane quotes from them and people always believe they're true. And Ulysses by James Joyce, 'cause we have the same last name and nobody else has read it either.
Book you are an evangelist for:
I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks, the mad forgotten genius of comics. And its sequel, You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!
Book you've bought for the cover:
Too many to name. At least a thousand--many designed by Chip Kidd. I believe unshakably that you can, in fact, tell a book by its cover.
Book(s) that changed your life:
With a quick perusal of my life I'd say:
Where the Wild Things Are
Mad magazine's "snappy answers to stupid questions"
The Edward Gorey Anthologies
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Great Gatsby
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
War of the Worlds
Roget's Thesaurus
Favorite line from a book:
"Shut up, he explained."--Ring Lardner
Book(s) you most want to read again for the first time:
The Jungle Book
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
War of the Worlds
Stuart Little
What fictional characters in literature would you most want to be?
Well, there are several:
The crayon from Harold and the Purple Crayon--it has such a clean elegant line.
Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby--the guy dreamed big and tried so hard.
Jeeves the Butler from P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories. Jeeves knows all, is totally at ease and always gets his way.
Are there any genres of writing that you feel are underappreciated as literature?
Yes. Songwriting. I believe that Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer and Cole Porter are just as good as Tolstoy; but they get the job done faster and have a better beat. "One for My Baby" is three minutes long, but you get a full, complete story, with flawless prose that'll haunt you till you die.