‘Alana’s Guide to Getting By’ illustrates how one person navigated homelessness in Portland
The Portland State University Collaborative Comics Project aims to change the narrative around homelessness through ethnographic cartooning based on the experiences of PSU students. The project will culminate into the 10 comics published as a booklet and sold by Street Roots vendors. Street Roots spoke with 8 of the artists to learn more about their process. Read all the interviews here.
In her youth, artist McKensi Payne found comics during a time of isolation. Drawing up characters and creating adventures for them, Payne would often create zines and explore the world of comics. Payne appreciates the unique ability of comics’ to tell a story differently from any other medium. For the Portland State University Collaborative Comics Project, Payne illustrated “Alana’s Guide to Getting By.” The comic tells Alana’s story of navigating homelessness while juggling school. Payne hopes that readers of the comic can question their preconceived notions about homelessness.
Kanani Cortez : How long have you been creating comics and doing this type of art? How did you get started?
McKensi Payne : I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, ever since I was a little kid. I feel like I especially got into comics when I was in middle school. When I was a kid, I had leukemia. I had to stay home for the entirety of fifth grade because I had a bone marrow transplant and my immune system was just rebuilding itself back up. So I was isolated for the entire year and during that time I was trying to figure out ways to fill my time. So I got really into making, essentially, zines with all these characters that I had created and it was like a combo of comics and just random little articles that I wrote.
From then on, I got really into the idea of drawing comics. It’s just something that I do kind of on the side. Now that I’m an adult and have a job I, unfortunately, can’t make it a full-time thing, but I still enjoy reading graphic novels and stuff like that. I think it’s a really cool way to share a story just because it’s a really unique way to share a story. I remember taking a class actually in college where we kind of just broke down comics. There’s just nothing else really like it because it really does guide you through an experience in a way that reading a book can’t and watching movies is obviously very different. I really respect comics and I think they’re really cool. I’ve just been into them for a super long time.
Cortez : It’s been cool to see how the landscape of comics has changed, there are more queer comics and there are smaller publications and zines in the mainstream. It definitely feels like there are more avenues now to get into comics than in the past.
Payne : I never really got into Marvel or DC or anything like that. I got into Craig Thompson, someone gave me a book by Craig Thompson. From there, you know, I went to Powell’s and found another book of his, but in that section, there were a bunch of others. From the course in college, the whole list of books we had to read for the year was very broad, just all over the place, things that I’d never heard of before. Because in comics, you know, anyone can really do it. It just creates a lot of variety. There’s a lot to choose from.
Cortez : What kind of themes have you explored in your comics, previously, and have you created comics about homelessness prior to this project?
Payne : I have not created comics about homelessness specifically, but I did think that this is really cool. Just because, again, comics are a really great way to share a story. I think kind of a way to maybe draw audiences in who might not have read about someone’s experience before. I have not personally done any subject matter like this before. Honestly, the things that I did in the past were very varied, but when I was a kid, it was just random stuff about the little characters that I made going on adventures. When I was a little bit older, a lot of it honestly has been about just my experience with race and living in Portland, and my personal experience with that. A lot of the comics that I’ve made more recently have been more surrounding that (topic) just because I think it’s a good outlet for me to write about those experiences. In a similar way, it’s maybe something that some people would not read unless it was in the comic form that it’s in. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, but I feel like it is a nice way to express various things that have happened to me.
Cortez : How did you get involved in this (collaborative comics) project?
Payne : I actually found out about the project through the IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center). I used to volunteer there, but I haven’t for about a year now because of the pandemic. I did volunteer at the IPRC for a while and they sent us emails here and there throughout 2020 about projects that were going on and this was one of the projects that was mentioned and I was like ‘this seems really cool.’ Especially working with Street Roots, I’ve always gotten Street Roots and I thought it’d be really awesome to be involved in something like that. So I applied and here we are.
Cortez : Looking at the process of creating the actual comic, were you able to meet your subject in person?
Payne : I didn’t actually meet the person whose story I was writing about, which is kind of interesting. It just never worked out time wise, but I do think that in itself is pretty interesting. Just because I’m relaying someone’s pretty personal stories that I’ve never actually met in any way. I don’t know, I can’t speak for the other artists, but I know that some people were able to talk to the person that they were writing for, making the comic for. I kind of wonder how that shapes the creation of the comic and the telling of the story. I’m interested in hearing what other people have to say about that.
Cortez : How did you draw inspiration for what their character would look like?
Payne : The person that I was assigned to actually was okay with having me draw their likeness, so I just got a couple photos of them.
Cortez : For this project, your piece is titled, “Alana’s Guide for Getting By,” how did you and the subject of the comic decide what the formatting would be? What was the collaboration process like?
Payne : I think that Alana saw some of my previous artwork. And then with that in mind, really wanted it to be kind of like, not a map, but just kind of guiding through Portland and her experiences in Portland. So like an actual guide. I feel like the way that I draw things and write everything down is kind of like an instructional booklet anyway, so it all kind of worked out and that’s kind of the style that she wanted.
Cortez : “Alana’s Guide to Getting By” is in black and white. Do you typically work with a lot of colors? How did you decide on the colors for this comic?
Payne : Most of the time I do work with black and white and this was a situation where I had drawn everything out so that it would have looked okay if it was just strictly black and white.
I did check in with one of the heads of the project and she said a lot of people are doing color and I think if this is what your style looks like anyway; you should just stick with black and white just so there’s more variety to the spread that we have. So that’s how it kind of got finalized that it would be in black and white. But I do a lot of my work in black and white and occasionally I’ll use color. I risograph sometimes and that has really vibrant colors, but even then I only use one or two colors.
Cortez : The project’s overall focus is to change the narrative around homelessness. As an artist, what did you learn from this process? Especially from taking an ethnographic approach?
Payne : I think that houselessness and how it can come about … there are just so many reasons that can happen. I feel like there’s this idea a lot of times that you make personal choices that will lead you to become homeless and I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I think that any of us, if certain things transpire, can become houseless at any time, and I don’t think it reflects on the value of a person or how intelligent someone is or their worth or their value. I’m just happy to be able to share someone’s personal experience too. I really do think that this project will be great for people to see people’s personal experiences expressed artistically because it’s not anyone’s fault that they’ve become houseless.
Editor’s note: Street Roots partnered with Kacy McKinney and her team at PSU to publish the PSU Collaborative Comics project. Street Roots’ vendors will sell the publication alongside the newspaper beginning Feb. 2.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots . Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today .
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