Stewart Lee

I'd quite like to write a book about comics, actually. But trying to write about comics as literature, which I don't think anyone's really done before. Sometimes they're more like fan books, and I'd quite like to write one about the Marvel universe over the last 50 years. It's an unprecedented achievement to create that length of continuity.

If I had grown up in London, I wouldn't have been as keen to become a comedian or a writer. I'd have been able to see a lot of good films and music and comedy. I'd have been distracted. As it was, I had to make it.

What I look for when I see a piece of art for the first time is some kind of emotional, intellectual experience, that's a combination of both of those things and is informed by my knowledge and something new that I see the artist doing.

The '50s in general are written off as a boring decade following the turmoil of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath - the postwar Labour government, the cold war, the arrival of the New Look in fashion, etc. But I remember it as a very exciting time - a pioneering, rule-breaking time, especially for the young.