Comics are a particularly esoteric field where you really learn how to do it, by doing it or by learning from other practitioners.

I always start drawing any job by planning out to some degree the locales and trying to nail the characters. If they're existing characters, I'll draw them several times on rough paper just to get a feeling for them. The ideal when you're drawing a comic is to have everything in your head, not to have to refer to notes.

When I first came to New York City, what I was thrilled about was not the Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty; it was the fireplugs in the street. These things that Jack Kirby had drawn. Or these cylindrical water towers on top of buildings that Steve Ditko's 'Spider-Man' fights used to happen in and around.

I think readers are always patient. Look at the 'Harry Potter' series. Some have given up on this generation of kids as game and TV addicts, but lots of people spend lots of time patiently reading through hundreds of pages of dense prose. I think reading a comic by comparison is a lot more immediate.

I'm a huge fan of online communities. I think that asynchronous internet-based communication forums such as Reddit and other discussion forums are one of the best things that could possibly have happened to collaborative invention. The Rift certainly would not exist without forums.

By reaching out to the community through workshops, hackathons, and after-school programs, Black Girls Code introduces computer programming and technology to girls from underrepresented communities.

There is no technology today that cannot be defeated by social engineering.

There's no better place in the world for technology start-ups than Silicon Valley; there's such an incredible well of talent and capital and resources. The whole system is set up to foster the creation of new companies.