"In the '60s and the early '70s, I read a lot of SF, so I'm fairly well-versed in that material. And I had an interest in fantasy starting with the Lord of the Rings, I read a lot of fantasy in the '70s. Classic stuff: Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake. Later work by Michael Moorcock. Besides Tolkien, Ballantine published about 60 or 70 volumes of an Adult Fantasy series, and I read that entire series. So I have a real interest in what Tolkien called secondary world creation, one of the things we do in comics. Because mainstream comics has this large shared universe-even though we all curse continuity under our breaths and sometimes, deservedly so, as far as I'm concerned. I like part of what it bestows-a rich complexity in the material that you can really mine and work. In a way, that helps to create stories worth re-reading because it enlarges them. It depends on the writer of course and the way you use the material, but it's such a fertile field for the imagination, I think it's one of the reasons I've stayed with mainstream comics for a long time."

Walt Simonson quote from his interview in COMIC BOOK ARTIST #10