Miranda Harmon is 24 years old and lives in Gainesville, Florida and is a graduate of the Sequential Artists Workshop. Her work focuses on the magic found in real life events.
What made you want to be involved with the project?
I was invited to be a part of Sweaty Palms and thought it was a good fit for me! My favorite comics to make are autobio and I’ve made comics that address mental illness in the past. I’ve struggled with anxiety for most of my waking life. I find a lot of my problems with mental health are eased when I make comics about them!
One of the things I like about your work is how personal it all is! How does it feel sharing such personal experiences and feelings online?
It used to be very easy, because it felt like when I put anything out onto the internet it was just for a handful of friends and strangers. It was almost like the livejournal days, when I kept a blog full of my intense 12-year-old feelings. It was only powerful to me if I knew that people could see it, even though only a few people did! And because social media has been around during the entire time I’ve been making comics, my journal comics were always broadcast for anyone to see.
But recently, I feel like I have an audience, with both the comics world and a bunch of people I don’t know! This feels great, but it also makes me hesitate before putting my personal comics online. Nothing would actually stop me, because I’m addicted to putting comics on the internet. But I hesitate! For some reason it’s always easier to share these feelings with complete strangers than with my friends and family. I’ve had friends approach me and tell me they were worried about me because of my comics. My family, too. I don’t want to upset them, but I want to be honest in my work.
How did you get into comics as a means of expressing yourself?
I’ve been drawing since I was a little kid, and my family always supported that. About halfway into college I started feeling like comics was something I could participate in. I think it became a reality when I started using the internet and going to comics shows, around when I was 20-21 years old. I’ve never been good at taking pictures, so making journal comics helped me remember moments and feelings from different stages of my life. When I started taking comics seriously, I was not very happy or secure with myself. Drawing comics gave me a new sort of control over my environment and experiences, and how the world saw me.
Do you have any advice for those wanting to get into comics?
Really, what you can do is just start making comics! Make a lot of comics that you want to make, don’t worry about the subject matter too much. Make journal comics about your day, even if that seems boring to you at first, they’ll get interesting as you do more of them and you’ll start to see your value as an artist. What works for me doesn’t work for everyone, but if I’m not happy with a drawing, I find it better to move on to the next one rather than redraw.
But I would also say that the most important thing you can do, besides making comics, is making friends with other people who make comics. It’s so hard to make anything in a vacuum! Don’t worry if you can’t immediately connect with your heroes, because your peers are right there! Reach out to them. The people coming up with you are the most important.
So much of the economics of comics now is tied into social media, but don’t worry if it feels like nobody is watching. Just do as much work as you can and be friendly and things might start to happen. Nothing is guaranteed (and please understand that I can only speak to my own experiences) but you’ll start to feel like a part of something big. You’ll be surprised! I am.
You can see more of Miranda’s work on Twitter, Tumblr & her website.
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
gummygunk
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
