I don’t think I have any unusual sources of inspiration for my comics. Some aspects of my characters’ personalities are based on people I know, people I’ve met, or even parts of my own personality. I won’t say which characters were inspired by real people because it might either flatter or annoy them!

Character development is something I’m always working on. It happens by knowing when to focus on certain characters and when to let others fade into the background. My strip has evolved over time—when I first started, it featured an ensemble cast of fairy tale characters. In recent years, I’ve shifted to focus on the Three Little Pigs, while adding original characters like Wolfette (the Big Bad Wolf’s sister) and Sir Lambelot, a hippie sheep. How the characters interact with each other helps them grow and change. The more I write, the more I learn about them, and their personalities and quirks emerge naturally. I’ve been doing this so long that, nowadays, when I write, I can put the characters into any scenario and their voices just start speaking in my head. The strip practically writes itself.

When I write, the most important thing to me is the gag. Every comic strip has to end with something funny—something that will make the reader smile or laugh. Even in more tender moments, I want there to be some kind of funny punchline. Sometimes, I’ve had an ongoing storyline shift direction because the gag in the last panel needed a humorous quip. In those cases, I have to play off that quip in the next strip to keep the story consistent.

It can be a challenge to carry a storyline across multiple strips, especially since I write in a way that allows readers to jump into any strip and still get a laugh. Even if someone only reads one strip, it’s important that they don’t need to know the past or future events to enjoy it. I’ve gotten really good at that type of storytelling over the years by not including unnecessary dialogue or panels. There’s a trap that I’ve seen other comics fall into where they write way more than they need to—which I’m certainly guilty of in my early work—but I’ve since refined my approach to keep things concise and effective.

My artwork has definitely improved over time, but I’m always striving to get better. Maybe I’m my own worst critic, but I always spot flaws in my artwork after the fact. One way I challenge myself is during the writing phase of a strip—I don’t worry about whether I can draw something or not, especially if it’s something more complex than usual. I just jot down the idea and figure out the artwork later when I’m doing the pencils and inks. The idea always comes first.

One of my favorite storylines started as a parody of The Prince and the Pauper. In this story, Little Pig #3 switches places with a billionaire CEO look-alike, and they both start ruining each other’s lives. There’s a big reveal near the end of that storyline, which directly leads into another where Little Pig #3 is lost at sea with the Big Bad Wolf. That storyline showed character growth and revealed unexpected sides to the characters that readers might not have seen before. This was such an interesting and fun story to write because it took the characters in unexpected directions. I loved that story so much that I actually made it the cover art of my latest book, Set Sail To Fail!