Student showcase: Rebecca Michaud
Interviewed by Zipporah Dorsey.
Rebecca Michaud is a fourth-year sequential art student.
What made you become interested in sequential art?
Honestly, I’ve been reading comics in some way or another since I was little — my first real introduction to comics was newspaper comics, of course. I really wasn’t interested in making comics until I discovered webcomics in late high school — it was a really accessible way for artists of all different levels of talent to self-publish their work, and there are entire libraries of comics content online. I wanted to be an artist and writer when I was younger, and through webcomics, I discovered a way to do both. I’ve been making comics off and on since late high school. For three years I ran an online comic that will never see the light of day again.
How long does it take for you to create one body of work?
A lot of my work is very meticulous, so personally I take longer on pieces than I probably should. Finishing a comic page from the first thumbnail sketch to adding the color and words takes me about 20 hours. I’ve mostly been making shorter comics for classes, but a story that’s about six to 10 pages long would take me about a month to make, from start to finish. It’s all about pacing yourself and your work — making comics is a marathon sport.
What kind of struggles do you face with your art form?
Motivation and consistency, for sure. As I mentioned earlier, comics are a marathon — big projects can take months to years of hard work to finish, and burnout is a big struggle that most comic artists face. There’s also a bigger problem in the way art is made on social media: there’s a constant push to always have something to show. Also, I like to work in genres that often contradict each other, such as children’s literature and thriller/horror. But I try to keep my demographic audience in mind when choosing what types of themes to put in a story. I also put warnings on all of my adult content.
How do you promote yourself as an artist and promote your work?
I primarily promote myself on social media, whether it be through my Instagram or Twitter, @raspberryimps. I post most of my recent work there, as well as my ongoing webcomic and sneak peeks into future projects. I’ll also take this moment to thank my friends: Jay, Dax, Robin, Shelbi, and Kelsey — I couldn’t do any of this without their constant love and support. Thank you for having me!
What is your favorite piece you produced?
There was a comic I worked on last term that I’m very proud of — it’s a short comic called “Lover of Lady Death,” about a serial killer who falls in love with Lady Death. It’s very much a departure from the usual lighthearted fantasy/action work I do, but I really love how it turned out. It was one of the first comics I did where I pushed the level of detail in my work, and it turned out wonderfully.
What can we look forward to next in your work? What do you seek to do with your art in the future?
Well, I’ve got two stories that I’m working on turning into concepts for graphic novels, which is exciting! In the meantime, I’ve been working on an ongoing webcomic called “Oxblood” over on my Instagram, which is a thriller/fantasy choose-your-own-adventure comic. In the future, I would love to write and publish my own original content, of course, but recently I’ve loved the idea of doing some sort of novel adaptation. I read a lot as a kid, and I’d love to find a way to publish official adaptations of some of the work that inspired my own.
