As a visual storyteller, a lot is learning what to include so you're not being redundant between images and text.

The comics I made from 1990 to 1997 were largely based in vaguely urban, vaguely dystopic settings because that was my reference point for comics storytelling in general.

Comics creators are generally screwed in life: Most of us who are fortunate enough to do comics full time - which is very few of us - will literally draw until we die because we have no employment structures intact for retirement, much less insurance!

The books that stuck with me most as a child were 'A Wrinkle In Time', 'Dracula', 'Hatchet', 'Bunnicula', 'White Fang', and this YA/kids' book called 'Nobody's Fault' where a kid drowns one weekend as friends play around a flooded ditch.

When I think of tag teams that have made me want to the very best, of course, I think of my family, but I also think about teams like Edge and Christian, The Hardy Boyz, and The Dudley Boyz, who all helped define tag teams during the Attitude Era.

Whenever I hear someone describe something as a 'kids movie' or a 'family movie,' it immediately has a negative connotation in my mind because I think, 'Well, as an adult, I wouldn't go see it by myself, because it's purely for children and it holds nothing for me and it's simplistic and it's kind of easy.'

I was raised in Hawaii in what I call a 'faith-inclusive' family. I never felt I had to choose loyalty to the New Testament over the Bhagavad Gita. It really wasn't until my late teens that I became aware of the ugly concept of sectarianism.

I loved teaching. It was my world. I only left because I was overwhelmed with three careers - teaching, writing, and my family.