After 9/11, I knew I wanted to write about power and identity and the way Americans on all sides of the political spectrum often mythologize our leaders, which are themes that the superhero genre has always handled really well.

I sort of jumped out of movies and into the lifeboat of comics. I loved it right away. It was the opposite of film school. Whatever was in my imagination could end up in the finished product. There were just no limitations.

They hurt you. You hurt 'em back. Or maybe it is the other way around. Whatever. Someday you might find a way to forgive each other. But it won't be like it used to 'cause that pain never really goes away.

I love that the book [Paper Girls ] gets to kind of evolve and change in each era. Our third storyline is our best so far.

We're always looking roughly 30 years behind us. In the '80s they were obsessed with the '50s and so on.

I don't start a story until I know where it's going to end.

But nothing warps time quite like childhood