I knew that I did not have to buy into society's notion that I had to be handsome and healthy to be happy. I was in charge of my 'spaceship' and it was my up my down. I could choose to see this situation as a setback or as a starting point. I chose to begin life again.
When I did 'Battlestar Galactica' it was the first time I really understood science fiction. That was a very political drama but set in spaceships so people didn't really take it seriously. But some really fascinating things were explored in that.
If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don't want to open up my cornflakes and find that they're full of pebbles... You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn't.
We travel together passengers on a little spaceship dependent on it's vulnerable reserves of air and soil all committed for our safety to it's security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
I'll confess right here that I secretly wish I'd have drawn a strip about a little boy with a fake tiger going for adventures throughout the universe in spaceships of his imagination.
More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy tragedy and intrigue.
But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in it's all there at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.