I'm fascinated by the idea of disparate, difficult people learning to trust each other when they're thrust into hellish circumstances.

I'm not sure how writers and artists of other graphic novels join forces, but this is how the process worked for me: First, I produced my final script. Then, Mark Siegel, my editor at First Second, assembled information about 10 or 12 different artists and had me look through their portfolios to see what kind of styles appealed to me.

As writers, we do our best to conjure a world so vivid that the reader can practically walk through it - but we're still only using words and relying on readers to do a lot of work of imagining. Providing pictures as well as words offers a whole new dimension to the experience of consuming a story.

I hadn't thought specifically about doing graphic novels until a couple of my friends got contracts for them. Then I started picturing how various of my stories or poems would work in an illustrated format and thinking how cool that would be.

Now, like a lot of parents, I have to fight with myself every time I leave the house not to buy my children more stuff.

Considering the fact that I have been in the spotlight more or less since I was 18, there is an aspect of normality to my public profile, which I have grown to live with. As much as I would like to disappear into the crowd, my work won't let me - difficult as it is for my family.

I am not a passive person, but I chose to fall into a more submissive role in our relationship because I wanted to do everything in my power to make my marriage and family work.

As any new parent knows, you're only too happy to show off your new child and, you know, proclaim that he is the best looking or the best everything.