Alex Chiu has always been fond of stories. At first, he told stories through tiny, ornate, vividly colored comics populated by fanciful, lovable characters, like cats with rainbows streaming from their eyes and smiling cyclops with fangs—carefully crafted worlds full of imaginary creatures living a peaceful, playful existence. Chiu characterizes this early work based on dreamy self-expression as “escapist” now, but his dedication to it over many years honed his sense of color, composition, and narrative, and provided him with a capacity to envision safe, joyous ways of living that inform his visionary current work: large-scale, public murals—a far cry from the tiny comics made in what he calls “monastic” introversion.