Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness and your black presence.

The graphic style itself is influenced by a lot of very layered and detailed comics that I read as a kid, like Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue.

It is hard to produce work in New York. You kind of have to center yourself - do some Zen meditation exercises and just focus. It is very distracting, and money, of course, is an issue.

For a while, I was nervous about portraying women because of the objectification that automatically comes with it, whether the artist intends or not. With "Of Another Kind," I've not so much drawn nudes - I hate saying "nudes" because it's not a spectacle - but portrayed people naked. I see them in a more straightforward way - exposed, but with no indication of who or what they are; they're just there.

Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness and your black presence.

For a while, I was nervous about portraying women because of the objectification that automatically comes with it, whether the artist intends or not.

I moved around a lot when I was a child; two of the houses I grew up in have totally disappeared. One was burnt in a riot, and the other was pulled down.