"Reap What You Sow. Write What You Know."- An interview with Harvest creator, Terell Rasha
There’s no shortage of webcomics. A quick Google search brings up hundreds of comics varying in genre, art style, and length. With so much content to choose from it could be difficult for a comic to standout, but one title has gathered a fair amount of attention and it doesn’t even have a single panel out yet. Harvest is an upcoming webcomic about witches, their covens, and the battles they fight for power. On June 24th I sat down with Terell Rashad, creator and writer of Harvest, for an exclusive interview.
Rashad, 21, was polite and a bit shy from the beginning of the interview, but opened up quickly when asked about their creative process. I began the interview by asking Rashad about their inspiration for Harvest. “It came from,” Rashad breaks off their sentence with a laugh then continues.
“About 2 or 3 years ago is when American Horror Story: Coven came out and I felt like for me personally because I really enjoyed it. I’ve always enjoyed magic since I was little. I’ve always enjoyed witches and stuff like that, but American Horror Story: Coven sort of brought that into contemporary times, because we haven’t seen anything like that since Charmed and while I was watching it I was kind of frustrated, like I enjoyed it. It was super funny, super entertaining. It was of course offensive at times, but for me I think what sort of disappointed me was the ending how I felt towards the ending because they showed all these witches show up and it almost seemed like there’s this promise of other covens, other witches and I kept wondering the entire time ‘This can’t be the only coven left in the entire world. What’s everybody else doing? [...] What’s going on with the politics of witches?’ I just kept thinking ‘What would it be like if there were multiple covens? And they all had interactions with each other. What about all these various councils, about all these various rules?’ And that’s where Harvest came from.”
I nodded. A story inspired by another. Not an AU or a reimagining, but a story in it’s own right created by an author who experienced one work and knew that there could be more if only someone would take up the mantle, and so that’s what Rashad did. “Well thank you Ryan Murphy for giving us something good,” I joked. Rashad laughed “Thank you Ryan Murphy.”
I continued. “So I was wondering why did you choose the title of ‘Harvest’ for your webcomic?”
“It took me about a year and a half to finally settle on Harvest, because we had a lot of team changes. But um through all of that we would just refer to it as witches [...] and that’s because I couldn’t settle on a title yet and I was talking to our friend Kelso and I sort of had this idea about the Wiccan wheel of the year and the different feasts that they have. The idea of festivals, the idea of harvest, especially since a lot of my writing does have a Biblical tone to it. The idea of like harvesting of the soul and reaping what you sow kept going through my head so I thought ‘What about Harvest’ and then naming the books after different festivals like Lammas, Mabon, Samhain, stuff like that. That’s really where it came from, and specifically because a recurring theme in the comic that I won’t spoil just yet, but like the actual act of harvesting, of reaping what you sow, the soul being harvested there’s this line that Tiara says in the comic that we’ve put on the Harvest Production blog, ‘If this is a Harvest who’s being reaped?’ that I think is a really interesting thing that I want to play with so the idea of life and death. That’s where it came from. It came from a lot of things, but originally it was inspired by actual magic.”
“Do you have a favorite coven? And if so which one is it?”
“I always feel super lame saying that I like the Florida coven, because it’s to be expected, but I feel like as a writer if your main character and your main character’s setting and where your main character is, if that’s not your favorite if those things aren’t your favorite you shouldn’t be writing the story. That’s how I honestly feel. I chose Tiara for a reason I chose to focus on the Florida setting for a reason, because they are my favorite. But I still feel like that’s such a boring answer, because people expect me to say that, so if I had to go second favorite...oh lord, I mean that’s also really hard, because I put all the covens in there because I like them so much. Because there are a lot of prototype covens that didn’t make the cut. There are a lot of prototype witches that didn’t make the cut and ultimately it’s because I found the ones that did make it more interesting. So it’s difficult to go ‘well this is even second favorite’ because I love them all, but if I did if I was forced to choose a second I would have to say the Texas coven. Definitely. The Texas coven actually like now that I think about it. And I think it’s a multitude of things. I mean I like all of the covens design wise like how the characters are designed they’re all very different, very unique, but I think the Texas coven has some of the most interesting characters in terms of design and I think that in terms of narrative they add a lot to Harvest. Which people will see if they read Harvest, people will definitely see that, but I think the Texas coven has a lot to add it terms of narrative they’re actually very integral to the story of Harvest and I can’t wait to see that fleshed out more like actually come to life in front of me, so I would go Texas.”
“Now do you personally see yourself more so in any one character or is there a bit of you in every character do you think?”
“There are some characters that aren’t like me at all,” Rashad laughs. “Specifically because I try as a writer I try to break away from having my characters reflect me too much, because it starts to get a little unrealistic. I want everyone to be unique and I want every character to be themselves, so some characters are based off of people in real life and I keep that as true as I can, because you know some of the people that I’m basing these characters off of aren’t necessarily PG-13, but Harvest is definitely PG-13 so it’s just like trying to keep that as close as possible, but I think personally I think it’s going to sound a lot like the last answer this feels so boring, but I feel like there’s a lot of me in Tiara of all people obviously. She’s the main character, she’s very close to me, we both have the same astrological sign she’s a Cancer. I think we both share a lot in common. Well there is a lot about us that’s absolutely different, because I feel like I’m definitely more outspoken than she is, but in terms of like situation and lifestyle what we’ve been through stuff like that, in terms of experience and how we view the world and if I found out that I was a witch today or tomorrow I’d probably have the same exact reaction as she’s going to in the comic, which I’m sure people already can kind of gather from the fact that we’re writing this as sort of like ‘Okay cool I’m a witch. What’s next? I wanna learn how to do magic like immediately. Like I’m ready.’ Because we talked about this before, but you know Tiara’s whole thing is trying to find somewhere she belongs, because she’s always felt different and she feels like maybe magic can be that place where she belongs and it’s kind of similar for me, like I’ve always been looking for somewhere where I belong so it be cool to one day go on an adventure like a magical adventure and be like ‘Wow this is where I actually belong.’ I think we’re similar in that way. Like I’m giving her opportunities in fiction that I can’t have in real life.”
“There’s a lot of diversity I noticed in your cast. Body type, race, sexuality, romantic spectrum, gender, etc. I was wondering why you feel it’s so important to have such a diverse cast?”
“For me I mean obviously diversity has been a very hot topic in terms of artistic medium, like every hot topic. On what characters should be included if people feel that characters should be included, stuff like that. For me I feel like that conversation can be sort of too watered down as to who’s included, who’s not included, and I think people can sort of miss the purpose of representation as just being more than having a diverse cast, but making sure that you can represent them as authentically as possible. So for me including all of these characters first off...and sometimes I hate this answer, but I feel like this is the answer that best describes like why I included it in the first place. The reason why I’m doing it is because that’s the world I see around me. Most of my friend group are either non-cis or non-heterosexual or non-heteroromantic so for me that’s always sort of been the norm to go to as to like having diversity in terms of sexuality and gender, because I sort of surround myself with people who aren’t cis or heterosexual no so much on purpose, but because of someone who identifies as both trans and non-heterosexual it makes me feel comfortable like having that sort of community to help me grow into a better person to help me understand myself more. The same thing with race. I mean I’m an African-American person obviously. I’ve grown up around Black people. That’s what I’ve known. I’ve always known diversity so it be sort of an injustice to my own experiences to not include the type of diversity that I’ve seen in my life and through my experiences. And I also think to a certain extent it’s a political statement, because I think that with the way things are in terms of representation and the media I think that including as much representation as there is in Harvest it’ll always be viewed as a political statement, because as the end of the day it was a conscious choice. I could have just chose to not have the type of representation, but I did it one because I wanted that sort of authenticity that exists in real life and two because I don’t see myself well represented in the media. And as someone who considers themself a creator who specifically wants to influence children and young adults and give them something they can look to to say ‘Wow this character remind me of myself. This character looks like me. This character has the same experiences as me.’ I think that it’s important to demonstrate that across all spectrums. So it is sort of like a political statement to say that these people can be in these types of stories too. And they don’t have to be exploited within these stories they don’t have to take minor roles they can be the main characters, they can be the game changers in the story, because for what reason is it that they can’t be? So there is a bit of political twinge to that, because we don’t see that right now and as someone who, who is affected by that lack of representation and as someone who views themself as a creator I want to be able to give myself a form of media where I feel like I’m proudly represented. I want to give that to other people as well, but first and foremost it’s just because I’ve known diversity all my life. So it doesn’t make sense for me to just exclude people, because that doesn’t make sense to me. Like these people exist in real life why can’t they exist in a fantastical magical witch world too?”
“So going off that question then with the recent string of queer characters being killed as well as recent real life acts of violence against queer people and people of color how do you balance handling your story the way it needs to be handled while being mindful of the ‘bury your gays’ trope and how prevalent murder of people of color is in real life?”
“See this is so difficult. I’ve been thinking about that so much recently. We’ve been seeing an increase of police brutality in terms of Black characters being killed by white people in the media in terms of the news, real life, an actual tv shows that we like like what happened recently in Orange is the New Black as I’m sure we all know. For me this is so difficult, because Harvest at its core, which I’ve been saying since day one, is sort of like a war story. It’s war between covens and that’s what it will always be and I don’t plan to change that, because to change that for me I might as well pursue another idea. What makes that so difficult, well let’s put it this way I guess [...] for me what I think it is the difference between what Harvest does in terms of violence between the actual violence that happens between queer people, queer people in real life and in the media is that it’s more than just an attack on identity. What we’ve seen recently in the news and what we’ve even seen in Orange is the New Black is they’ve always been an attack on identity specifically. I’ve had this conversation before but to me there’s personally a difference between dying while identifying as something and being killed specifically killed for what your identity is. In Harvest it’s different, because it’s not straight people killing queer people because they are gay or them dying because they are gay especially since there really aren’t straight characters in Harvest which is so odd. I don’t know if anyone...no one’s ever asked before, but there aren’t really straight characters in Harvest. I would say at most four. At most four out of all the ones that we’ve posted so far. So for me I think that it is an issue that needs to be addressed. The way that we’re handling death so far is no in the same sort of hyper-violent way what we’ve been seeing recently. There aren’t any scenes in Harvest where you’ll see anyone being choked out for two minutes. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in Harvest, that just doesn’t exist in Harvest. Will there be death? Definitely. I think with a story Harvest it’s unavoidable, because like I said it is a war story. I think that we will have to be very sensitive about that and I’ve been thinking about all the trigger warnings that we’ll have to give people as well, but I think for us it’s an entirely different sort of representation because these characters are not dying because of acts of homophobia, because of queerphobia, because of transphobia they’re dying because the balance of the witch world is at stake. And as a writer specifically I feel like there’s a difference between a writer who identifies as cis or as heterosexual who is specifically killing off the only queer character that’s represented that’s just not the case in Harvest. As a queer person myself with multiple queer characters dealing with a story where people will be dying I think it’s entirely different. I mean it’s been different in media written by gay people where gay people also die in those stories it’s perceived in an entirely different way because the author themselves the writer themselves have the authority to handle those issues, because they understand what it’s like to go through that violence. So I think that’s how I sort of feel about that if that makes sense, not saying that I have any sort of authority to touch violence, I mean I’ve known violence in my life, but I think these characters aren’t dying because of their identity [...] as a writer as someone who doesn’t identify as heterosexual I don’t think that they’re dying because of those reasons and for me personally as someone who has dealt with violence if that’s ever something I’ve ever wanted to go into I think that it’s a beautiful coping method for me as a writer because I’ve experience that violence verses like the regular white cis heterosexual male that’s writing the death of lesbians. I think that’s an entirely different thing than what Harvest is doing currently. I think it’ll be an issue though. It’ll definitely be an issue and I’ll have to be very careful about how i go about it, because people are tired of seeing queer people die and I am too. It’s tricky, it’s very tricky. Live I’ve said I’ve known violence all my life whether it’s microaggression to being harassed by police officers to other forms of violence and I feel like those are stories that I want to tell as well, because those are things that have happened to me and those are things that I would love to communicate with other people. I don’t know. It’s a very difficult question. You got me with that one.” Terell and I laugh.
“I had to ask it. I had to do it,” I joke. “So this is a fun question. A little bit of sweet after the sour. If you had to cast three actors to play three of the characters in a live action adaptation of Harvest who would those actors be and for what characters?”
“Well, hold on actually, because for Harvest we used Pinterest, like we’re super big on Pinterest, because it’s really cool it’s really useful for doing character boards and stuff like that. Now I’ve always known for Tiara I would love Normani from 5th Harmony to play Tiara, that’s one of Tiara’s references. [...] This might be overarching and this may not count as one of the actor questions but since a lot of my real life friends includes a lot of characters in Harvest like I’ve always said if Harvest were ever animated and we needed voice actors that they would always play those characters, because those characters look like them so if we needed actors if any of those people considered themselves actors I would ask them as well, just because this characters was based off of you, like no casting director could tell me they don’t fit the role, because I literally based it off of you. A lot of characters in Harvest are really based off of real life people as in people I consider myself friends with. [...] As much as I hate her I would love for Azealia Banks to play Jennifer, because that’s one of Jennifer’s reference as well like that would be absolutely perfect because they’re like the same person. When I tell you I would hate working with her, absolutely hate working with her, but perfect. Tiara has two friends that you will meet in the first 20 or so pages of Harvest, we haven’t really gotten the chance to showcase them yet. But um one of her friends is named Zenobia, I would love for Keke Palmer to play Zenobia. And the other one is named Taurus. I would love for Michael B. Jordan to play Taurus.”
“So what have you found most enjoyable of the pre-production of Harvest when it comes to fan interactions. Like the website and the blog and the twitter. Like what do you really enjoy about the Harvest experience so far?”
“People’s reactions. Like people’s reactions is so weird. I’ve gotten some really positive feedback so far and I think that’s what’s so odd, like it’s odd going to the blog and seeing how many notes we get, how many people in the tags are like ‘I can’t wait to read this’ how many people have sent us messages personally like ‘wow this is really inspired me to do more work on my story’ or ‘this is really inspirational.’ We had one person come to us and tell us that this is the exact type of representation they’ve been asking for, which is cool, because that’s what I’ve been trying to. Like I’m a fantasy writer and fantasy is almost devoid of people like this like you have to go to webcomics or indie developed things or really small things in order to find any sort of representation so like that was really cool for someone to come to us and say ‘this is the type of representation that I’ve been waiting for. This is the type of representation we need.’ Fanart is really nice. We haven’t gotten much fanart, but the fanart that we did makes me want to cry. I’ve always wanted to create something where people felt so inspired that they would create fanart based off of it and we’ve gotten fanart because of Harvest. Like I’ve had someone tell me that they want to write fanfiction for Harvest and it’s not even out out. That’s what I think is so interesting, we’ve released the bare minimum of what Harvest is on the internet. Like there’s so much more to it that people don’t know yet that we’ve just been sitting on that we’ve just been waiting for people to see. And it’s so interesting that we’ve garnered this sort of response from basically world building posts and character designs, characters sketches. Like that’s so interesting to me. So I can’t wait until Harvest actually is out there and people see what it is, people see what magic is in this world, we get to see fan reactions to certain events that happen. Stuff like that. I love it when people send me questions or like anyone else on the team questions and just ask us stuff. I love it when people send us fanart. I love when people just say ‘this was really inspirational.’ They don’t have to obviously, because I’m not trying to inflate my head or ego or anything, but every single time we post something and it gets notes [...] it only pushes us to work harder, because we’re doing this for ourselves first and foremost. We’re doing Harvest, because it’s fun for us. We’ve been sitting on this idea for so long it’s super fun for us, but we’re also doing, because I said earlier we have seen this lack of representation and we want to give people something to look at and say ‘wow I see myself in this’ so it’s really cool to have people come back and tell us ‘wow this is inspirational I see myself in this’ like that only pushes us to do more, because that’s what we wanted. I love interacting with...I don’t even like calling them fans [...] I just refer to them as Harvesters or I just call them people, because I feel so weird calling them fans, because it’s such a hard pill to swallow that something I made is garnering fans. That’s weird. That’s really weird. That’s so odd to me, but I love it. I love it. I love everyone who supports us, they really keep me going.”
“So I know that you’re a poet. I’m sure many of your fans also know that you’re a poet? How will poetry work into Harvest? Will you be doing some poetry work for Harvest every once in awhile?”
“Okay, this is uh. You know Harvest is supposed to be an artistic experience first and foremost. I am super obsessed with art. I am super obsessed with ideas behind art. What creates art for me personally. So it’s an artistic experience. It’s supposed to be a multimedia experience and that’s changed because we’ve had switches in our team recently. Our former illustrator, Andrea, moved to California so she won’t be able to spend as much time illustrating as she would like to so we decided to make the switch and have our former colorist, Victoria, be the illustrator and now Andrea is our colorist so nobody left team Harvest it’s just a little role reversal. Um, so it’s like...I have no clue where I was going with that actually. I like...I lost my train of thought, but um we did a bit of role reversal and that sort of opened up new windows for us in terms of how the art of Harvest looks, how it’s structured, what people should be expecting, and what sort of multimedia experience they should be expecting as well. Um, things have changed. In terms of me as a writer, as the only writer of Harvest, not that they don’t help obviously, like they get the script they see it...that’s where I was going with that. Um, because, um Andrea works so much differently than Victoria does. Um, Andrea is a very literal artist. Like whatever you give her she will draw to a T and I love that, because obviously that’s what you want. Victoria is very different. You give Victoria a script and she will try her best to get what you wanted in her own style, so she will take a lot of liberties unless you specifically say ‘this has to be there.’ So that’s changed how I view Harvest entirely now that I’m working with Victoria as opposed to Andrea, because with Andrea I could be very literal and expect to see that. For Victoria I could give Victoria stuff and she’d interpret it, not entirely different, because the basics are still there, but it looks entirely different than it did in my head and so far I’ve loved everything. Like for me it looks better than what I imagined or what I was trying to go for, which is very cool. The way we’re all working as a team is very interesting and the colors Andrea has been working with are all absolutely beautiful, so because of that it’s changed how I’m writing Harvest entirely. Before I wrote Harvest in a very traditional script style. Very traditional script where everything was broken up by page, everything was broken up by panel there was sound effects included and everything. Now that Victoria is doing it I’m allowed to...I’m allowed more artistic liberty, because Victoria is going to interpret what Victoria interprets regardless. So we both agreed that instead of doing it panel by panel I’m only separating them by page and there are little short blurbs of prose. So now Harvest is written in this sort of odd almost micro fiction type of thing and it’s been really really fun. It’s been a lot of fun. Everything has been flowing a lot more smoothly than traditional script style, because that was my first time working with it. So this is something I’m a little more familiar with. No one’s really read my prose before as far as tumblr is concerned, but my prose and poetry really do go hand in hand, because my prose is very poetic. I started off as a poet, so whenever I write my prose it’s also very poetic. And there will be parts of Harvest where the script is concerned where it will just, I’ll just hand Victoria a poem, and I’ll say ‘figure it out’ just because we’re also challenging ourselves with Harvest. Part of the artistic experience is seeing how far we can push ourselves, because it’s the field we want to be in and we all know that once we get professional jobs we might not be given the chance to have this artistic freedom so why not test ourselves, why not go past our limits and see what we can do. And that really where it’s going right now. In terms of what the readers will be able to see the dialogue there will be bits of dialogue that are a little more poetic than what you would normally be expecting out of a webcomic. There will be certain sections where lines of poetry just might be inserted. You’ll have to wait and see. And as far as spells are concerned, because we’ve gotten questions about spells before, how magic works and we’re keeping all of that under wraps. I always feel like every single time I say that people might be thinking ‘that’s because they don’t know’ I’ve been working on Harvest for three years, I know exactly how the magic works, I know exactly how spells work in this universe, I know exactly how words of power work in this universe. And words of power are super important to Harvest. There are spells. The most I can say is that it’s a very traditional form of doing magic. And these are kids, we’re working with Millennials, and I personally think that when you have a 17 year old witch they won’t want to open a very old book and recite a very old, probably corny poem to get the desired effect. They’re going to find their own way to use magic. Whether it be song lyrics, whether it just be saying certain words, maybe it’s just feeling something, maybe they use apps on their phones. Who knows? It’s all up in the air as far as the readers concerned, because only we know. There will be a little poetry, there will be poetry and those traditional spells I will say that much, because like you said I am a poet, I am in fact a poet, so I can’t just leave it entirely, because Harvest is a multimedia experience, it’s an artistic experience and webcomics are art in and of themselves, but poetry is also art so you just get double art. Twice art when you combine them.”
We ended the interview there, but before I finished my talk with Terell, I brought up their upcoming book of poetry, which should be released either on the same day as Harvest, July 7th or the day after on July 8th. Terell promises a surprise that they need a bit more time to work out before the release date, but that we all should look forward to. Terell’s book, Break, will be available for purchase in ebook form soon so keep an eye out for it. And as Terell said at the end of our interview “There’s nowhere but up.Just gotta keep going.” With a mindset like that I think we can expect a lot from Terell Rashad, a poetic writer who enchants with both their personality and their words.
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