I do make some conscious efforts to write female friendships, intergenerational female friendships. I make a conscious effort to include things that I see as important real parts of my life that are not reflected as much as I think they should be in popular culture. We very seldom have the opportunity to see women compete and remain friends.

Female Convict 701: Scorpion' is based on a manga as is 'Lady Snowblood.' I saw 'Lady Snowblood' in the theater between writing issue three and issue four of the first arc of 'Pretty Deadly,' and I was really surprised how much I was influenced by it.

If you can remove a female character from your plot and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story still works, you're a hack.

I'm not particularly good at page layouts. I make an effort to stay out of the way of the artist. What I'll try to express instead is, 'What we're going for here on this page is the idea of the containment of these women's bodies. So I want them framed as though they're bursting out of the panel borders.'

Growing up with three brothers and three sisters, I was the storyteller of the family... what my mother called 'The Liar.'

No way, because there's love relationships, there's sex relationships and then there's the band.

I wasn't going to shy away from getting married when I did and having a baby young and starting a family, even with the job that I chose.

My biggest ambition over everything is to have kids. It feels great. I'd love a big family.