Who was the first love of your life and why?
I have been thinking about my first big love, a mysterious Chinese doctor from Texas who showed up at the University of Illinois when I was an undergraduate. He was wonderfully handsome and dressed better than anyone around, in suede vests and black turtlenecks, and he owned an enormous collection of boots. He had to leave Mexico quickly under suspicious circumstances, which had something to do with stolen antiquities. What more could one ask of a romance? Now, I would love to locate him, so if anyone knows where he is, please contact Jacque Parsons. Dr. William Chu, where are you?
What is your favorite book?
My two favorite books are The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (I have lots of paperback copies of this book because they have different covers, and, somehow, that comforts me – I need more if anyone has them) and The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, a wonderful English novel about betrayal and how things are never as they seem, which is exactly what The Crying of Lot 49 is about.
What trait do you most deplore in yourself?
When the remake of Lolita came out, I watched it and read the book again and then rented the original Lolita and got excited about the idea of reading books that had been made into movies. So I watched Moll Flanders, which has been remade several times, and then my attention wandered. This brings me to the trait I most deplore in myself, which is either watching too much television or a very short attention span.
What is your greatest challenge?
On the one hand, I have one of the best careers in the world: a chance to mouth off about everything and draw while I am in my pajamas. But, on the other hand, having to come up with a strip six days a week every week with no vacation, there is always the possibility that I won't come up with an idea. There will just be a blank space in the middle of the comics and the paper will drop me. I'll have to take a job, not quite as much fun as drawing a cartoon while in my pajamas, like mucking out the stables for some very rich person in a far northern suburb or swabbing the deck of their yacht.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I am terrified of water, which prevents me from buying an island or a yacht, so I have to indulge myself by buying art and perennials for my garden. Also, I like to buy stuff you don't have to try on.
What do you love or hate about Chicago?
I fear Chicago winters.The cold. The dark. Putting on that heavy coat, those boots! In the winter, I feel like a child dressed up in my snowsuit: sweating, whining and unable to bend my arms while I am waiting for the rest of the family to get ready. In the summer, I'm overheated and miserable inside and desperate to get inside when I'm outside. I seem unable to leave Chicago because I love everything else about it. I think this is unfair.
What quality do you admire most in a woman?
I have to mention Jeanne Kirkpatrick in the context of what I most admire in a woman, because she has the best cheekbones of any woman not on a movie screen. Her politics are far to the right of mine, but those cheekbones!
What quality do you admire most in a man?
In men and women I am drawn to wit, energy and compassion, but I am a fool for cheekbones and difficult people who adore me. I'm exhausted. Can I stop now?
