The word "dysfunctional" has attached itself to the word "relationship" like a mastiff sinking its teeth into a small quadruped. This has created a hunger for a household that works, that comes together despite its differences, that draws strength from each member's love, support -- and ability to groom for parasites.

Kevin & Kell is pointed to a family audience, teens and adults alike. It follows the adventures of two very different individuals who have fallen in love: Kevin, a burly rabbit, and Kell, a petite she-wolf. The resulting clash with their disapproving society provides satiric comedy in which in the issues of our world are played out and resolved.

One aspect of this world, of course, is that beyond the family unit carnivores do eat herbivores. For the Dewclaws, the issue of predator and prey are utilized in a benign, humorous fashion, depicting daily life with slightly raised stakes.

Kevin and Kell live in a hollow tree (at the corner of Tooth and Nail Streets) containing all the comforts of a suburban home: TV, indoor plumbing and neighbors with binoculars. In this woodland setting the basic antagonism between herbivores and carnivores provides a prism through which the divisions of modern living are depicted. The two individuals find themselves arrayed against various entities that are threatened by such an unconventional coupling: a government that doesn't know how to classify them, corporations that turn down promotions, relatives who reject them, businesses that discriminate and refuse service and a community that barely tolerates tolerance. Kevin and Kell are confronted with forces that seek to divide them, but they persevere through their commitment to one another.

This is a family that is riven by internal contradictions, with each member having a built-in conflict with the other four. Yet whatever problems arise for the Dewclaws, our rabbit and wolf never waver in the things that are truly important -- their mutual well-being, the future of their children, the happiness they provide... and everything else between Kevin & Kell.

My main reason for doing a strip with animals, however, was to be able to comment on the union of opposites in a way that was universal. With a human cast, any difference of race, religion, class, etc, would have been too specific. The rabbit/wolf context enables the strip to pertain to any distinction that creates mistrust. Kevin and Kell can then transcend that divide, in a way that a wider audience can relate to.

Ah yes! I see it now! You're actually part of a secret society of cartoonists who are in league with the plasmoids from the Quincunx system who are planning to relocate the entire human race into different species!

No? Oh.

Well then... I'd like to ask you about your drawing style. I'm guessing from looking at your work that Watterson must have had some influence on you. As Charles Schulz would say, "It's fun to look at." Your panels are light, detailed, but not weighted down. Your lines are clean, and your dialogue is expressive, but snappy. Not to sound fawning, but Kevin & Kell is to certain Internet strips as chicken soup is to ten-alarm chili. It doesn't need to be endured to be enjoyed. Are there any other artists to whom you credit an influence on the formation of your unique style?

My major drawing influences were the Mad Magazine artists, primarily Jack Davis and Mort Drucker. Put them together, throw in a little Charles Schulz, a dash of Will Eisner and you get me.