Mirka Hokkanen is an early reader graphic novelist and picture book author who lives in Maryland, but grew up in Finland. Her works skews younger than I usually read, but I was glad to make her acquaintance, and will be reading Mossy and Tweedy soon. Mira quickly responded to our usual questions.
What
type of comic work or cartooning do you do?
My
work is for younger elementary school audiences, and I've completed two early
reader graphic novels, and hoping to create some more in the future.
How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?
All
my graphic novel work is digital. I usually start sketching in Procreate, and
then ink and color in Clip Studio Paint.
When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?
Late
70's kid here!
Why are you around DC now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?
We
are in Olney, and moved to Maryland for my husband's job in the military.
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
I
have an MFA in printmaking, which doesn't help much with graphic novels. I had
no idea how to write a script, but thankfully a friend, Ken Lamug had a class
on it and how to get started in Clip Studio Paint.
Who are your influences?
Since
I create for younger audiences, I look for inspiration from work for that age
group. I took a lot of inspiration from Pelle Fantti, and Maailman Vahvin
Nalle, comic books that I grew up with. I also read an excessive amount of
Donald Duck/Disney comics. But also from contemporary graphic novels and
picture books, like Pea, Bee and Jay by Brian Smith, Beak and Ally by Norm
Feuti, Hilda by Luke Pearson. I was also influenced by Looney Tunes and similar
cartoons from my youth.
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
I
wish I would have had the tools to start earlier. I switched careers in picture
book illustration about 8 years ago, but wish I would have jumped in much
sooner.
What work are you best-known for?
My
concept picture book series Kitty and Cat has been well accepted and won some
awards, so it would probably be those ones.
What work are you most proud of?
It
always feels hard to choose, because I like different aspects of different
work. I'm proud of my Little Seasons books, because I really love the way they
turned out, with fun colorful illustrations, humor, educational content, and
good backmatter. In general, I create the kinds of books that I would want to
read to my kids.
What
would you like to do or work on in the future?
I'd
love to continue my already existing books series, and continue to illustrate
books in general. I also have a little dream of illustrating a fabric
collection, doing more licensing.
What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?
If
I'm on a deadline, I will just keep showing up and start working, and
inspiration follows. When in between projects, and need to work on new things,
I try to schedule big enough blocks of time (like 1.5-2 weeks), where I can play,
read, generate ideas, and have a looser brain, where there is room for ideas to
germinate and grow. I have a notebook where I put ideas when I'm too busy to
work on them, and then during the looser times, I'll come back to them and see
if there is something there to work on.
What do you think will be the future of your field?
I'm
really interested to see where this march with AI is going. I don't think AI
can replace the human element of book creation, so in that way I feel confident
that good books will continue to be created by people. There is always a
pendulum swing of things, right now there is a huge growth and push for AI-related things, but I think eventually the dust will settle, and the pendulum
swings the other way.
What comic
books do you read regularly or recommend? Do you have a local store?
During the summer, I normally read a lot of the comics from my youth when we visit Finland (= my parents house). We have the above mentioned ones, and we also have a big collection of Asterix and Obelix, Lucky Luke, and Calvin and Hobbes books. I love graphic novels too, and read a lot of them. One book that I fell head over heels for was Clyde by Jim Benton. The humor in the book was so unexpected and spot on for me, I think it's just as much for adults as it is for kids.
I often order
used books from eBay, or buy new from Amazon, or the book stores. We don't have
a local store where we live unfortunately, the closest bookstore is 25min away.
(Which is probably a good thing for my bank account.)
There
is a ton of stuff to see here! We moved here less than a year ago, and are
still exploring all the things to do around here.
I
hate driving in traffic, and not being familiar with the area, so getting
around always relies on having a navigator handy.
So
far we have been taking family to the Natural History museum, because the kids
love it.
Yes!
You can find me at http://www.mirkah.com, or on social
media at http://www.instagram.com/mirkadraws and http://www.twitter.com/mirkahokkanen
How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected you, personally and professionally?
It was hard to work during Covid with kids. My husband works in the medical field, and he was almost absent during that time, and I decided to homeschool our kids, so trying to keep everyone healthy and happy took a ton of energy, leaving much less of me for creative pursuits. We also moved to a different country (for military) towards the end of the outbreak, which was a nightmare. But it also was the time when everything I had been working on for writing and illustrating "clicked", and I ended up signing three book deals for six books in a very short amount of time. So I came out swinging, even if exhausted at the end.
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