Miranda is a Washington-based comic artist and layout designer. They strive to tell stories that have a deep emotional impact on their readers and inspire people to reflect on their lives and in turn learn or heal something about themselves. Miranda likes happy endings but certainly isn’t opposed to some painful tragedy along the way.

I had the opportunity to interview Miranda, which you can read below.

First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourselves?

Thank you for having me! My name is Miranda, I have had a variety of art related jobs like graphic design, children’s books and animation since I was 22, so about 13 years, but I stepped into comics as my main thing in 2019! Now I do that as well as Layout Design taking other vertical comics into print form.

What can you tell us about your project, Muted? What was the inspiration for it?

Muted started out as a collaborative project between myself and my wife Chase. We’d been making characters and stories together since we met in 8th grade and we realized we had a surprising lack of lesbian and witchy characters despite being lesbians who are rather witchy, haha. We felt New Orleans would be a good spot for it because it’s beautiful but also has a lot of supernatural history. But after I designed Camille, Avaline and Athalie I had a sort of “brain blast” of inspiration spiraling out of how the story would unfold and Chase agreed that I could take it over as a solo project. So we shifted to collaborating on LoveBot instead which is the WEBTOON that we completed together. 

As a creative, what drew you to the art of storytelling, especially graphic novels/webcomics?

I grew up watching any kind of animation I could get my hands on, and became enthralled when I was first exposed to anime like Sailor Moon and Inuyasha because I realized how big stories could be in a way I’d never seen before. And then, of course, with the internet I found a lot of early webcomics that I probably was too young for at the time. I made a lot of original characters with friends and would draw little comics of funny moments that we would talk about, and in 2005 I basically wrote out an entire novel (on loose leaf paper in a binder) about a half-cat demon. 

I always had a deep desire to express something fantastical, and originally my thinking was that I would go into animation and develop my own animated show. I did go to school for 2D animation in Vancouver (VFS) back in 2010 but after realizing that all of the available jobs were more for drawing stories that weren’t my own I became a bit disillusioned by the process and also… just fully grasping how long animation takes, haha. 

And while I did make an animated short movie with a friend I found that telling a wider story through comics was more effective since it involves a lot less people and you can get a lot more across with decidedly less images. 

How would you describe your creative process?

I would say that my process is pretty quick. While I didn’t get a job in animation I would say that it certainly influences the way that I draw. I imagine the pages I’m going to be doing as a “scene” that I have to “storyboard”. I do a super rough first pass for the entire series of pages just to get the beats down the way that I want them to all at once. I do the dialogue for these pages at the same time because if I write out a script ahead of time then I’ll find it is too wordy for the pacing of the images and I’d have to change it anyway- So I found it best to just merge the two. Then a second sketch to tighten things up and really ground it. Then the line art, flat colors. Then usually I do the backgrounds and then the shading on the characters themselves. Because deciding what the colors around/behind them is like will inform how the characters are going to be lit and shaded. 

If you’re asking about the much broader process of creating a story to the end… You have to have a very clear image of the beginning, something strong in the middle and how you want it to end. Then I just sort of thread those moments together and build up on it as I go. I feel like there is a lot that reveals itself to me through the act of creating it that I wouldn’t get if I was just trying to think of it all ahead of time. 

It can be dangerous, of course, if I realize I said something in the beginning that messes with what I want to do in the future. But more often than not I find that I leave myself easter eggs of potential ideas that I can then use to expand on something seemingly innocuous that was mentioned before. 

What are some of your favorite elements of writing/illustrating? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult? 

I think my favorite part of writing is when a bunch of dots finally connect. Pieces that have been laid out but sort of kept in the dark until the big reveal. I also really love the super emotional moments- those are my favorite to draw. I feel like it is more common to express things now, but I feel like growing up there were a lot of … emotionally stunted moments? In movies/shows/games/etc. Where when people were angry or sad they couldn’t really express those feelings. Or I felt like the story didn’t properly get the chance to dig into how upsetting something is. So I really love having moments where characters get to just kind of break down a little bit- even more so when someone is there to hold and support them through it. 

For my least favorite part of making comics it’d be the flat/base colors – which is just the act of filling in the basic colors of the characters- are by far the most frustrating and time consuming because it’s just a stop gap between the more creative choices like how I want the lines to look or the shading. That is why I’ve always just paid my friends to do that for me when given the chance HAHA. 

With writing the most frustrating part is obviously the starting. The longer I wait to start the more in my head I get about how it is going to go out onto the page. 

As a creative, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general?

I draw a great deal of inspiration from creating with my wife, obviously, but also just from seeing what all of my friends are up to. I am inspired by how hard everyone around me works and it makes me want to strive to be better.

With media (games/tv/movies) I always say that a movie that makes me cry is a good movie, haha, meaning that I think if something manages to make me feel strong emotion then that is important and powerful. So I come away from things less like “I want to make a story like this” more “I want to make a story that makes someone feel like this”. 

The problem is there are a lot of things I like, like Moulin Rouge or Train to Busan that have objectively tragic endings and I haven’t quite gotten to the point of being able to commit to writing a full tragedy. Both Muted and LoveBot I feel have the benefit of having tragic moments with a lot of emotional catharsis but still come out with happy endings. But who knows, maybe it’s time for me to just write something that ends sad, haha!  

Aside from your work, what are some things you would want readers to know about you?

One thing that some people might know but a lot of people are surprised whenever I bring it up, that I’m the person who did that “Meant To Be Yours” Heathers animatic back in 2017.

 I’m currently obsessed with Letterboxed because I get to gamify watching movies. I don’t think my reviews are particularly thought out but I just love having a little diary of all the stuff that I’ve watched. In particular, I’m a big horror movie fan. 

I also have dreams of actually getting the strength to stream video games. Because I do love playing video games and feel like that could be something fun to do with my audience but haven’t quite crossed that bridge yet, hah. 

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but that you wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?

A question I’ve been asked a few times in DM’s but might as well put out here for the record. “Are you okay with Muted fanart and fanfiction?” 

I absolutely love fanart, I love seeing people taking the time to draw characters of mine. It brings me nothing but joy. And I ADORE the idea of someone being invested in the world enough to write out entire stories in fanfiction – however I don’t actually READ fanfiction based on my work at all. I believe that fanfiction is more of a personal/private thing that shouldn’t be overseen by the author. I think that people should be allowed to write freely without wondering if I’d consider it “canon” enough or “In character” or not. Like… Make a Pirate AU, I don’t mind! But don’t ask me what role Camille would have on the ship- you know? That’s your sandbox, not mine, that is totally up to you how you want to handle it. Make an AU where Chloe is also alive, but don’t ask me about what her personality would be like as an adult because I wrote the version of the story where she’s dead. HAHA. Not sure if that makes sense but… I just want people to feel free to be inspired by my story without having to get verification from me on its contents. 

What advice might you have to give for aspiring storytellers out there?

You just gotta write (and/or draw it) it. You have to. I know that is the advice that so many people give but it’s the only one that is really true. No amount of advice I give you will matter if you don’t actually do it in the end. 

And depending on where you are in life, it is very likely going to suck. That half-cat demon story I mentioned earlier? Sucked. A bunch of other stories I’ll never mention that I wrote in middle and high school? Sucked. But even if they were not good they were SO much fun to write. And the more you write the more you learn and you just… get better at it. 

It’s just all muscle memory, you know? You can’t run a marathon if you won’t even walk down the block. You can’t bench press your weight if you won’t even do reps with 10 pounds. “You have to walk before you can run” and in order to walk you have to… Start walking. 

And another thing… Sometimes the story you are super invested in is not the story you are ready to tell yet. I’m not saying you CAN’T start with your magnum opus of a story, I’m just saying that you’ve probably thought about that story so much now that you won’t know how to start. The beauty of Muted was that it was so far removed from stories/characters that I had spent years thinking about and changing that I was able to pick it up immediately and run with it instead of pulling off all the excess parts that weren’t relevant to the story. 

So again, maybe do a 5k Run with a shorter story before you do your Magnum Opus Marathon. Just so you can finish it and prove to yourself that you can do it. No matter how good or bad it is. It will be done. 

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

Nothing concrete at the moment. There are a lot of stories floating around in the works that I’ve been trying to chip at. One story is with Chase and has to do with lucid dreaming, another is a story based in Trea (the world Dendro is from) about one of my oldest Original Characters. And another is about a newer character that I developed named Lydia Grey but her story has taken on 5 different versions so far because I originally created her when I was pretty burnt out so I need to brush the dust off of her, haha. 

Finally, what books/authors (LGBTQ+ or otherwise) would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?

I have fairly eclectic tastes and I like a lot of things so I’m putting these in alphabetical order and obviously leaving it up to the readers to investigate any content warnings at their leisure should they look into them, haha. 

Berserk by Kentaro Miura

Brimstone and Roses by Speremint

Bunnybirds by Natalie Linn

Cinderelle by troyzworld

City of Blank by 66

Covenant by Lysandra Vuong

Ghost Junk Sickness by studioCARTRIDGE

Heir’s Game (and Shoot-a-round) by Suspu

I’m The Grim Reaper by Graveweaver

Marionetta by Míriam Bonastre Tur

Nevermore by Kate Flynn and Kit Trace

Not So Shojo Love Story by Curryuku

Phantomarine by Claire

Snow and Briar by M. Nires

Suitor Armor by Purpah

Sunset Phoenix by NeverDraws

The Last Dimension by Leaglem

The Prince of Southland by Chris Geroux

Tiger, Tiger by Petra Erika Nordlund

Uriah by Toffuo

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama