Was it a vastly different feeling than talking about the weight issues through fiction, ala Joy Ride?
Yes. Real events are more personal to me. I find that the rewards for putting them on paper are greater. In all seriousness, what’s harder – comedy, or drama? Good question, but I don’t know. Both require a good idea and the right presentation that will produce the desired effect. I love both and am happy when I can deliver a good story of either kind. In both your strips from the period (2004) and in the current book, you reference your divorce. It seems like the strips done at the time were almost therapy – first the lovely odes to your neighborhood when you were afraid you’d lose your home, then the completely off-the-wall (improvised?) zombie brain eater serial, which reads like you were exorcising a lot of demons in its making. You talk briefly in ‘Big Skinny’ about keeping yourself occupied with your work, and ‘Big Skinny’ itself definitely makes it seem like you’ve not only gotten through the emotional and financial minefield, but have actually taken from it and used it to produ
