ANIMATED ADVENTURES

There is no roadmap to get into the worlds of animation and book publishing, according to artist Zachariah OHora.A fan of comics and children's picture books, he decided in high school to follow the path. But what path? Little by little, OHora picked up pointers.

"You need an agent to get into it," he says. "Or you need a book deal to get an agent. Which comes first? It took many years of rejections and doing things wrong until I finally landed something correct.



" Simple characters led to illustrations and, finally, that book deal. While OHora considers himself an artist first, he's also a writer. "I got forced into the writing, to be honest," OHara says.

"I was trying to present myself as an illustrator for other people's stuff, (and advisers said) get more control over everything. If you can write, you can get all the commission instead of splitting it." "Wolfie the Bunny" got OHora on the New York Times Best Seller List.

"My Cousin Mom," "No Fits, Nilson," "The Not So Quiet Library" and "Niblet & Ralph" helped establish his style. The next step: animation. It took OHora nine years to develop a character into a PBS Kids show.

The winner: Carl the Collector, a raccoon who just happens to have autism. "PBS Kids is always looking at ways to represent our audience," says Adriano Schmid, vice president for PBS Kids content. "We have seen throughout the years how autistic kids or young teenagers were always champions of the content.

So, it was a great opportunity for us to work w.