by Mike Rhode
Sierra Barnes, aka Sierra Bravo, is a local webcomics creator. I'm going to lift her bio from her website, since we haven't met in person during these crazy times.
Sierra Barnes is a historian-turned-comic-creator who
currently lives in Washington, DC making webcomics and print comics
based on history and folklore. She graduated in 2014 from the College of
William & Mary with a double-major in History and German Studies,
and graduated in August of 2019 with a MFA in Comics from California
College of the Arts. She is particularly interested in the relationship
between history, mythology, and memory, and her comics (including
webcomic HANS VOGEL IS DEAD) reflect this. When she’s not making comics,
you can usually find her haunting cafes and museums like a very nerdy
ghost.
What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?
I do graphic novels and webcomics! Mostly long-form a la Monstress and Namesake.
How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?
Digital art all the way, baby. I started out drawing pencils and scanning in but found it really cumbersome, so now I work directly in photoshop/clip studio with a Cintiq tablet.
When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?
I was born in 1991 in Houston, Texas! Don't ask me anything about it though, my family moved out of state six months later.
Why are you in Washington now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?
I moved to Arlington to be with my fiancee (I've spent most of my life in Northern California), but mostly because I was done living in a small rural town with not a lot of art prospects.
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
I taught myself how to draw with help from my mother, who is a fine artist, and got an MFA in Comics from California College of the Arts last year.
Who are your influences?
Writing-wise I love Susanna Clarke, John Connolly, and Marjorie Liu, and visual art-wise I draw a lot from Mike Mignola, Natasha Alterici, Ivan Bilibin, and Alex Alice. I love Eastern European folk art as well!
Is Sierra Bravo a pen name that you use?
Sierra Bravo is a pen name I use! It's just my initials in the NATO alphabet, but since my first name is also Sierra, I thought it was kinda funny.
Are you a full-time artist now, or do you have a job that pays the bills?
I wish I were arting full time! I work part-time as an admin assistant for AASHTO's publications wing working with transportation and infrastructure oversight. My favorite part about the gig--other than my coworkers haha--is that they have all the records of transportation standards and whatnot stretching back to 1914, so I've gotten the chance to look at some really cool transportation history in America! Road materials in 1920 pre-standardization were WILD.
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
I don't think my career is far enough along for me to have regrets, per say, but I think I definitely would have resized all my pages to be industry standard comic size if I knew five years ago I would spend 40+ hours trying to format my weirdly-sized webcomic pages for print!!
What work are you best-known for?
I would say my webcomic of five years, Hans Vogel is Dead. A dead Nazi realizes in the afterlife his actions in our world have had greater consequences than he could have imagined, and must journey through the world of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales to rectify them.
What work are you most proud of?
Probably still Hans Vogel is Dead, I finished Volume 1 in August of this year and had a print run that sold out in three days!! Very exciting.
What would you like to do or work on in the future?
I'd love to be picked up by a publisher for HViD, but I also have another series I've been pitching around to agents as a print-only run. I really would love to be working on graphic novels full-time someday...
Why are you doing a World War II flying story?
I did a lot of work studying various aspects of aviation history and mythology in undergrad: the Nazification of the German air force from 1918 to 1940, how that was framed in popular culture, the general myth of the "Knights of the Skies," how Manfred von Richthofen's life was weaponized as propaganda--stuff like that. I found the intersection of the popular conception of heroic and chivalric pilots and the reality of the 2-week life expectancy and horrible deaths to be really interesting, and I also found that the weaponization of those popular conceptions went hand-in-hand with how the German Air Corps of WWI became the Luftwaffe of WWII. I knew I wanted to tell a story about how regular people could become radicalized, and with my background in aviation history and the rich imagery of WWI and WWII pilots, I felt like pulling from the visual library of the Battle of Britain and the Luftwaffe would have some cool and poignant results. I did a lot of research while I was living in Austria on my Fulbright, spoke to people, and visited a lot of war memorials to get more information on how that trauma was processed--and is being processed now--in collective consciousness, and sort of solidified the idea of Hans Vogel as who he was and how he became what he did. While I was there, the far-right FPÖ party gained power in the state where I was living, and seeing the rise in right-wing nationalism around the world since has galvanized me in my decision of making this anti-fascist story. I hate it when people try and divorce things like the German Military in WWII from politics--and I see it a lot in military history nerd circles!--you just can't do that ethically. In a lot of ways, Hans Vogel is very much pushing back against the whole "Good German" myth and trying to have a conversation about culpability even when you don't "mean" to do bad things. You gotta step up.
Will Hans Vogel have a second printing?
Hans Vogel will have a second printing, but I'm waiting to hear back from a publisher before I pull the trigger on ordering a second print run myself. I should know by mid-October, so I'll be making an announcement then!
What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?
Despair mostly. I'm really struggling with figuring that out!
What do you think will be the future of your field?
I've really loved seeing the growth in digital and webcomics recently, as well as seeing a rise in independent and self-published comics. I think there's a real future in non-superhero comics and comics from smaller, independent creator-owned publishers! There have been some truly fantastic indie comics, especially webcomics, that have come out in the last few years and I think the industry is coming around to recognizing these self-published pieces can be really great. Seeing the success from smaller publishers like Iron Circus and Vault has given me hope that this is the future of comics.
What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Awesome Con, or others? Any comments about attending them?
I've done one year of Small Press Expo in-person, one year of AwesomeCon in-person, and one year of DCZinefest digitally (scheduling issues between COVID and masters program has made things complicated!). I highly recommend all of them, although I will say that SPX and DCZinefest are much more indie-friendly than AwesomeCon. Even so, all of them were a great time!
What's your favorite thing about DC?
Oh man, I can't pick just one!! I love the museums, I love the National Zoo, we've got some really great restaurants, but also the hiking and kayaking around here is great? I guess most of those things are "before-COVID" pastimes but someday I believe we'll be able to go back in and draw animals at the zoo again... I appreciate that there's a lot of boba tea places near me that do good takeout at least!
Least favorite?
The weather. I don't think I'll ever be used to the humidity, or the summer thunderstorms, or snow. It's just so wet all the time here...
What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?
I always make people visit the Air and Space Museum with me, I love to go look at the planes in the WWI and WWII exhibits. A few years ago they had a traveling exhibit on WWI artists that was INCREDIBLE. I was really happy I got to go see it.
How about a favorite local restaurant?
Daikaya in Chinatown, Sakuramen in Adams Morgan, and Hanabi Ramen in Clarendon! I'm a huge ramen fan. I also love Chill Zone in Arlington, it's a lil mom and pop Vietnamese place that I used to go pop down and grab banh mi and work for a bit.
Do you have a website or blog?
My art website is here: https://www.sierrabravoart.com/
webcomic is here: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/hans-vogel-is-dead/list?title_no=62633
Twitter: @chjorniy_voron
Instagram: @sierra_bravo_art
How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected you, personally and professionally?
Closing shows has really bummed me out, and that's really the biggest impact it's had on my professional career as well. Online shows have not had the same response as in-person, and they're nowhere near as fun. I miss getting to do the networking and hanging out. Personally, it's been a struggle to keep up with productivity and burnout is real, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to use the end of the year to kinda collect myself and figure out how to start the next volume of my webcomic and get some more pitches out there!
