What was it like to grow up along the borders of SoHo, Chinatown and Little Italy?
Kind of like it must sound. Pretty artsy, tons of Chinese folks around and Italian kids to come around and beat us up. I grew up on the corner of Broadway and Canal Street. For anyone who hasn’t been down there just imagine any street scene from Bladerunner and that would be pretty accurate. I was generally accepted into the Chinese culture. That is until my Chinese friends found out I was Japanese and had a weird name. Actually, my friends were actually fine. It was some of the parents that didn’t like their kid hanging out with a Japanese kid. I had no clue why. Later in life it makes a little more sense. How did you start drawing cartoons, and had you always aspired to become a professional cartoonist? If not, what were your other career options? (You graduated from Boston University with an advertising degree: are there lessons in advertising that apply to your art?) In junior high school I told my class I wanted to be in advertising. They looked at me like I had two heads. But I k
