How much of Optic Nerve is autobiographical?
AT: I don’t know if I can give you a percentage, but every story is based on some sort of real experience. In some capacity it’s sort of evolved from where it was more kind of obviously autobiographical, like the things that you would see in the comic you would have seen had happened to me. It’s me kind of integrated into the story. I can only describe them now as emotionally autobiographical. They’re expressing some real sentiment of mine but the specifics are sort of made up. YR: You write situations involving women who are not in your age range. How do you accurately describe those emotions? AT: I don’t know, I guess it is sort of a combination of being an observer and taking a risk. And kind of making it up and seeing how it goes. YR: You get a lot of letters that are sort of critical and mean. Do you write letters back to them personally? AT: Everyone thinks because I don’t print my responses in the comic that letters don’t get answered. I write people back personally. Most of the
