Leef Smith grew up in seventies hippie San Francisco with handmade clothes, a vegetarian diet, and progressive politics, as well as Legos, Star Wars,and comic books, starting with Tintin. Later he was drawn into contemporary mainstream comics by the X-Men and Crisis on Infinite Earths and the rich complexity they offered. In 2009 he opened Mission: Comics & Art, a comic book shop combined with an art gallery.
