I was always a slow reader, from the very beginning. I remember in first grade our teacher divided us into groups, and I was definitely in the slow group. She didn't call it that, but everybody in the class knew. But I still loved reading. Being a slow reader affected my grades in school, but it didn't affect my love for reading. I still loved going to the library, and I still loved reading books.

As somebody who's kind of a technophile, I'm interested in how traditional and digital publishing connect. Maybe ten years ago they were seen as antagonists, but now they complement each other. There's data that shows digital sales actually drive print sales. And even the ways in which pictures and words, text and image, interact - we're seeing these books that are very hard to categorize. All of that is very exciting to me.

In the '40s and '50s, a lot of teachers and librarians saw the graphic novel as the enemy of reading.

Zombies aren't about zombies. It's not about the dead bodies. I think it's a very hopeful subgenre. It says that regardless of what happens, humanity will get through it. We'll figure out a way to survive.

I liked interacting with students. I liked having coworkers. For a long time, I was really worried that sitting at home by myself in front of a computer was going to make me crazy.

One of the ways [racism] pops up is when they turn a comic into a live-action movie and there's this temptation to make Asian characters white.

I think reading has got so many more enemies now that graphic novels have kind of flipped over to that side.