My post-child period resulted in one instant change: I write shorter books for kids.

I could draw Bloom County with my nose and pay my cleaning lady to write it, and I'd bet I wouldn't lose 10% of my papers over the next twenty years. Such is the nature of comic-strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste.

And that's why any of my picture books exist: They all seem to be built backwards from a simple, emotionally optimistic story beat.

Negative humor is forgotten immediately. It's the stuff that makes us feel better about our lives that lives long. Much more satisfying. Enter children's books.

If I could have drawn a cat yelling for lasagna every day for 15 years and have them pay me $30 million to do so, I would have.

I can say that even in the midst of my most cynical comic stripping: Opus shone through with a bit of heart, anchoring the ugly proceedings with a comforting pull of emotion.