When asked about how his passion for comics began, Ben shared with Bored Panda that his interest started when he was just a kid: “I've been doing these cartoon drawings for as long as I can remember. My mom's cousin, Steve Moore, is a cartoonist, so right away I thought of cartooning as a vocation. My first comics were all in the style of newspaper comic strips, like FoxTrot and Peanuts, only bad instead of good."
Ben revealed that his favorite stage of comic creation is the 'flow'—the state that allows him to fully focus on his work: “When you get into a 'flow state,' and you've lost track of time, and even your sense of self. This is utopia. You only realize you're there after the fact.”
The cartoonist continued: “Usually, it dawned on me that my music stopped playing and I didn't notice, because I was so focused. That's how I know I hit the flow state. The second best part of making comics is finishing your comic and staring at it, slack-jawed and sleep-deprived, knowing you should go to bed, but just staring, like almost hypnotized. That's good."
Zaehringer also confessed, "Drawing comics fills my days with a sense of purpose and creative fulfillment that is only rivaled by playing video games, except I don’t feel guilty spending hours drawing comics. (Whereas looking at my 'Tears of the Kingdom' playtime fills me with existential dread.)"
Finally, the cartoonist shared that the most recurring theme in his work is disappointment. He explained: “When I'm writing I ask myself, 'How can something fun be made disappointing?' Recurring motifs include: God, Santa, love, death, childhood, and ‘90s pop culture references. Life moves fast, so I try to only riff on things that are timeless, like Disney movies that get remade every ten years."
