An Interview with M.S. Harkness
I met M.S. Harkness at SPACE (Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo) in an old fairgrounds building on an unusually hot May day. I had heard of her work but never read it before, so was excited to purchase her graphic novel Desperate Pleasures. I found it compulsively readable, laced with humor, pain, honesty and some of the most enjoyable and effective comic art I’ve experienced in a while.
Now, in a cool twist of fate, M.S. and I are co-teaching a comics class at Columbus College of Art and Design (I cover the History, she the Studio), and she agreed to an interview, presented for you, here!
-Nora
Describe your comics journey—how did you get into making comics?
I've been making comics since childhood and for better or for worse, went to college for them. In my first few years it was pretty clear that my skill level and interest belonged in indie publishing/DIY so I began making autobiographical comics.
How did you develop your "voice"/unique comics style?
Really by clawing my way through making mini comics as fast as I could. About 6 or 7 years ago, I started selling them and figuring out what was well received and who my peers were. I didn't read as much as I could have at the start of my 'career'. A lot of my influences were stand up comedy and professional wrestling and animation. I've always liked drawing by hand, so when I finally got to reading the 90's autobio canon, it all made sense.
How do you think the comics form creates a community forum?
Does it? I mean, it's niche so you have to sort of find others online and/or leave your house. I don't think it's much different from people that like model trains or ventriloquism. We've all glommed onto it because we're visual people in a sense- we think through things vividly in our minds and maybe our other senses aren't as well developed? It helps us interpret our thoughts or our existence, seeing it laid out in a singular timeline kind of format. Then there's the people that are in it for the escapism element, all clamoring around each other to confirm their own grim lifestyles. Sometimes community is just being friends with people who are also smart or talented.
Are you working on something now?
I'm working on finishing my book Time Under Tension right now, I'm maybe 40 pages away from being done? It's like 250 pages total and it's been the thing that I've been chewing through over the course of the pandemic. I finished my second graphic novel Desperate Pleasures maybe a month into quarantining in 2020, so this is a neat little segment of my life. Fantagraphics will publish it next year, so I get to just work on short stories and anthology pieces for a bit. Heavenly! Actual Nirvana.
M.S. Harkness was born in Carney, Oklahoma in the early 1990’s, though her work is an autobiographical reflection of audacious young-adulthood in the Midwest. Harkness’s long and short form comics are played as a ‘true’ rendition of various tragedies and comedies, usually involving sex, drugs, dating and various memories from a difficult childhood. Her work has been published by Uncivilized Books, Fantagraphics and The New Yorker and she has been a recipient of the Minnesota State Art’s Board Visual Artist Grant.
