"Who Are Your Influences?"

I get this question a lot, and will attempt to answer it with (ta daaaa) visual aids! In no particular order . . .

1) Zilpha Keatley Snyder!



And specifically her YA novel, The Changeling. After I started drawing Chiggers I sought out this book, re-read it, and realized that the girls in Alton Raible's illustrations look very much like Abby and Shasta. I was surprised, since I must have been eight or nine years old the last time I read this book, but I'm sure it was a direct influence.

2) Salute Your Shorts!



This TV show about a bunch of kids at camp ran on Nickelodeon in the early-mid '90s. I loved it. It was this totally unrealistic depiction of camp (there never seemed to be more than 8 people in the whole camp) and it was a lot of fun.

3) Ryan Kelly!



His inks in Local, which I was lettering just before I started working on Chiggers, are wonderfully exuberant. His drawings of the protagonist, Megan, are pretty but not too pretty, and that goes a long way toward making her seem real. There aren't many female comic characters who seem like real people, so she's something special. Big ups to writer Brian Wood, too.

4) Dragonlance!



I don't think I need to explain this one. Moving on . . .

5) David B!



David B's artwork in Epileptic is everything I wish mine could be. A master of the comics form, he confines incredibly sinuous drawings within layouts which are often staid and traditional (like the six-panel gride in this example). I'd been working with soft, amporphous panel shapes in my previous books (Salamander Dream and Gray Horses), but Epileptic inspired me to give ruled borders a try.

6) Harold Sakuishi's Beck!



And I mean the manga, NOT the anime. Sakuishi's art, and especially his over-the-top facial expressions, are the main draw here. There are a few panels in Chiggers where the expressions almost seem lifted from Beck. They weren't—I used my own goofy face—but I was definitely going for a touch of that shonen manga sensibility.