The most impactful comics that I've read are the ones where the artists swung for the bleachers and tried to immerse you in their world.
Most normal boys, as they're growing up, they - in order to become attractive, they might, you know, get good at sports or join a rock band or develop good social skills, and for some reason, I thought that drawing comic books might be my route.
I had relatives who would go to Japan and bring back random stuff they bought at the airport or whatever - 'Ultraman' and 'Speed Racer,' stuff like that.
For a lot of the time I was in Berkeley, I was single. I was living in a kind of collegiate apartment by myself - it was like a protracted summer vacation. So at least in hindsight, I have gloomy emotions attached to Berkeley, whereas I started coming to New York because I was dating someone, and it was very exciting and romantic.
I've always liked the tradition of publishing work serially in the comic-book 'pamphlet' format and then collecting that work in book form, so I've just stuck with it.
All my stories take place on the West Coast - not the beach, but smaller inland towns. I feel homesick, and I find inspiration in capturing that.
