I set myself up for a lot of trouble by wanting to tell a story that is fairly earnest and emotional and expressive, but to do it in the most subtle, realistic way.

I get the impression from some people that unless they get direct access to characters' thoughts and realizations, either through thought balloons or narrations or some sort of showy action, then those thoughts and realizations never existed.

I sense a real difference in my work from the time I was younger and single and more involved in the world of music and going out to bars and all that. There were points at which I was trying to use my art to reflect positively on myself, to almost be flirtatious through the work.

I think there's a lot of evolution that's happened in intangible ways, in terms of how I think about the work or how I plan it out.

When email and the Internet came along, I never publish an email address. I just stuck with this P.O. Box address.

I certainly wasn't consciously hiding my identity in the earlier work, though a lot of people have brought up the fact that I drew myself without eyeballs.

I wanted all the responsibility to rest on the content of the story. I tried to make the visual style almost invisible.