In an essay for
Children's Books and Their Creators he wrote that he is frequently asked by adults, "'Why
is your art so dark? I am not quite sure why myself,'" he continued. "All I can say is when I was a child, I
liked dark things. I liked the night. I liked being inside with my family and listening to the sound the wind made outside. I liked the scratching of the clawlike branches against the roof. I liked thunderstorms. I liked building tents and castles out of blankets and chairs, then crawling under them. I liked telling ghost stories. I liked Halloween." Not surprisingly, he also loved watching monster movies and reading horror fiction.
While Smith's work can be unsettling, it also shows a zany sense of humor, which may be at least partly inherited. Born in Oklahoma, he grew up in Corona, California, with his parents and his brother Shane. Smith once commented on the rhyming names: "Shane and Lane. My mom thought that was funny. Yeah, a real hoot." He added that "her brothers were named Dub, Cubby, Leo, and Billy-Joe! My dad's brothers were Tom and Jerry (this is the truth)!" Smith developed an early fascination for the offbeat and the absurd.
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