PBS animator finally found his niche

It’s not every fine artist who is inspired by the “Three Little Pigs.” But it happened to Zachariah O’Hora.

An artist who was hijacked into writing, O’Hora is creator of a new animated series for PBS called “Carl the Collector,” premiering Thursday.

Carl is no ordinary raccoon. He’s autistic and loves collecting things. O’Hora got the idea from observing autistic kids at his sons’ unorthodox school.

What that has to do with the “Three Little Pigs” goes back to O’Hora’s high school.

“Growing up I loved comic books and superheroes, and I was just drawing all the time,” he said.

“And whenever I was bored, I was drawing whatever it was and was doodling whatever it was around me — which got me into trouble with drawing in schoolbooks. I like to tell my parents that now I get paid to draw in schoolbooks.”

But that paycheck was a long time coming for O’Hora, 50.

But he didn’t immediately follow his artistic dream. He hitchhiked across the country first.

“I read ‘On the Road,’ followed the Grateful Dead around — so I kind of had a circuitous route.”

He landed in San Francisco where he suffered a litany of odd jobs. He worked for the San Francisco Jazz Festival as an equipment person. He had a job on the assembly line at a vitamin factory. And he painted signs at a sign shop.

But he also finally buckled down and earned a bachelor’s degree in illustration from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Then he married, and he and his wife moved to New York City.

“I was trying to figure out how to write and illustrate picture books, and it’s a very opaque business” that resulted in four years of rejections, he said.

But the advice paid off. His first book to be published, “Stop Snoring, Bernard!” is about a sea otter who annoys all the others with his pernicious snoring.

He has since written a dozen other books. His two sons, Oscar, 17, and Teddy, 15, are inspirations for his work, as is his own childhood.