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MRR Comics & Art Issue Artist Q&A with Anna Vo

  • Published March 18, 2015 By MRR
  • Categories Interviews

This month’s MRR magazine is the Comics & Art Issue! Throughout March we are highlighting some of the participating artists right here on MRR.com. Today we hear from Anna Vo.

AnnaVo_art

What are your main publishing projects?
My two zines that have been going for about three years, Fix My Head (punk, politix, QPOC, interview/theme-based), The Swan The Vulture (personal zine about power dynamics, race, gender, inclusive practices, activism, gentrification, not being a dickhead) and my newly resurrected comic, Distortion, which is up to issue #3. I also am in compilation thingies when people invite me, such as MRR, and a couple of Portland, OR-based comic publications coming up.

What are some of your artistic influences?
My dreams, environment, horror movies, comic artists like Malcy Duff, Edie Fake, John Pham and Richard Hahn. I like abstract comix. I don’t know much about fine art but my favorite painters are Turner, Freud, Schiele, James Gleeson and Peter Booth.

Musical influences?
I have had a DIY doom, black metal and noise label for 8—9 years, An Out Recordings, and have been listening to that music, and hardcore, and Delta Blues and ’60s 12-string folk since I was a teenager. All of the above?

How would you describe your style of drawing?
Still forming.

What other punk projects are you involved with?
Besides the theoretical punk bands that get proposed every weekend? My solo folk project. In a doom band, Hreinn, which will start playing shows soon, and trying to drum in something if I can find people to play with in Portland. Just moved here, still making frenz. Other punk projects would be some circle-A groups I’m involved in — Jailbreak PDX, PMA (Portland Mutual Aid) — and my sweet punk haus. My job at a public school is also pretty punk.

What’s in the future for you as a cartoonist/artist?
My illustration work gets commissioned for labels/band art, but as for making comix, I am just starting and still learning E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I’m having a good time, and I’ll keep doing it until I’m not having a good time any more.

Check out more from Anna at littlestink.wordpress.com.

For links and more info about this artist and all of the artists in our Comics & Art Issue, check out the artist bios page.