1. What inspired No One Returns from the Enchanted Forest?
No One Returns is made of so many things I love. When I was developing it, I was thinking a lot about how to get the feeling of playing a Legend of Zelda game but without any sword-fighting/violence (so, aimed at a younger age than I'd aim a story with swords.) I have two younger brothers who helped inspire the characters, as well--if you put the three of us in a blender and poured us out into three new vessels, you'd get the three main characters: they have aspects of all of us, just re-configured. The name 'Enchanted Forest' is inspired by a small and storied local amusement park in Oregon, where I live, which is built into a forest and has a lot of spooky fairytale buildings that have always charmed me.
2. Any message for young (to older) readers who encounter your work?
I hope people are inspired to consider the power they do have, either when everything's going great for them or when they're feeling powerless, and to look for people with very different skills, personalities, abilities, and outlooks to help them when it's time to do something big. Bix and Pella, with their very different approaches and skills, confronted a big problem together when either one of them couldn't have done anything like that on their own.
3. Please tell us what draws you to comics for storytelling.
I've been spellbound by the incredible immersive power of comics since I was a kid, reading them right alongside prose and picture books and anything else I could get my hands on. I think my first experience with comics was my dad showing me a collection of Charles Addams' Addams Family strips from the New York Times, which also contributed to my penchant for a touch of darkness and horror! As an artist and storyteller, drawing comics means having the opportunity to really handcraft every aspect of a world for the reader to experience. So much of the storytelling is still done inside the reader's mind, of course, but now it's done in my art style, which is also an intoxicating magic to have.
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