“
I'm exhausted so the words I say may not make sense!
», laughs Zoe Thorogood, on the terrace of a bar, after a long day of signings at the Angoulême Comics Festival where we met her.
Cleverly squatting on her damp chair to avoid getting her behind wet, the blue-haired Englishwoman lends herself to the interview game with an enthusiastic and sustained delivery, despite her fatigue.
Released on January 17, 2024 by HiComics,
It's Lonely at the Center of the Earth
gives Zoe Thorogood the status of an essential artist.
Her first comic book, the very promising
In the Eyes of Billie Scott
(Bubble, 2022)
,
a fiction nourished by personal elements, already skillfully questioned the role of art and recounted the quest for meaning of a young artist.
It's Lonely
(for those close to me) digs into these reflections but pushes the potentiometer to 11/10 by taking on a totally autobiographical intimate story.
Dark humor and a funny anthropomorphic animal.
Zoe Thorogood / HiComics
“I’m thinking of sticking a very sharp knife into my carotid artery
. ”
From the second page, the reader understands that this 200-page
comic book
will tell an episode of suicidal depression for Zoe Thorogood, an illness from which she has suffered since she was 14.
“I made
It’s Lonely
out of desperation,”
explains the designer to Le
Figaro.
"I've always used art as therapy, so I started drawing my situation in a comic strip because that's what I know, that's my language."
A language that she masters to perfection.
Since the subject of the book was really dark, I knew we had to inject a lot of humor, a lot of idiocy
Zoe Thorogood
The artist's first brilliant idea?
Split your own character into five distinct avatars, each corresponding to a facet of your personality, in five different graphic styles (
read box at the end of the article
).
This cohabitation greatly energizes the story and makes it possible to multiply the hilarious scenes.
“Since the subject of the book was really dark, I knew that we had to inject a lot of humor, a lot of idiocy,”
confides the designer, who says she is a fan of black comedies.
The tone of the comic was inspired by the
Fleabag series
.
» As in the fabulous fiction of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Zoe Thorogood does not hesitate to break the fourth wall and also spins the metaphor of the theater stage.
Worms stuck under the skin symbolize anxiety phrases.
Zoe Thorogood / HiComics
The designer disrupts the traditional cutting of the plates, offers full-page images or text, alternates colors and B&W – or even a mixture of the two –, uses subjective views or “fish-eye” distortion, slips in photographs or an imitation video game, adorns certain characters with animal heads à la
BoJack Horseman
... The power of Zoe Thorogood's imagination, the very one that allowed her to overcome ordeals, explodes in our faces.
It's impossible to get bored, especially since many pages operate independently, like a
comic strip.
“I wanted to experiment and see how far I could push the comics medium
.
I don't think everything worked out as planned, but it was just so much fun to do!
»
The very construction of the book is particularly daring, with a chronology full of back and forth.
First structured around the artist's first comics convention, with a sort of countdown, the story allows for numerous flashbacks to childhood and adolescence.
Zoe's communication problems with her parents, her roommates or the local coffee seller poison her daily life, which is ultimately very lonely and often upsetting.
The difficulty in organizing the content of what would become
It's Lonely
is found in the structure of the book which, brilliantly, will be "rebooted" twice along the way (the obligatory mentions appear for the first time halfway through).
The designer draws herself in the company of Honeysuckle, the heroine of “Rain” (HiComics, 2023), a mini-series that she illustrated.
Zoe Thorogood / HiComics
When Zoe Thorogood finally signed a contract with Image Comics, there was no question of being supervised by a publisher.
“I wanted to keep my energy chaotic.
If other people had been involved, it would have created a conflict of ideas.
» Even the order of the boards was not defined in advance.
“A few hours before the submission deadline, I was sitting at my computer, all the pages in front of me as files, ready to send, but I was like, 'OK, what's page 57?'
», laughs the designer today.
Nothing was subsequently changed by Image Comics... other than spelling errors, "
and there were a lot of them!"
".
It is therefore an eminently personal work, without editorial direction, without commercial strategy.
Everything was obviously not rosy in this
“cathartic process”
:
“I had to revisit traumatic experiences from my past, I often cried on my drawing board,”
recalls the artist.
But I wouldn't say it was all difficult, it was just very liberating.
I don’t think I will ever have such an experience again!”
I'm so glad I didn't switch to digital drawing because a lot of my income, maybe about 50%, comes from selling originals
Zoe Thorogood
Nominated five times for the prestigious Eisner Award in 2023 – three times for
Rain,
adaptation of a Joe Hill novella that she illustrated, and twice for
It's Lonely
– Zoe Thorogood left empty-handed but who cares, it's now an artist recognized by the profession.
Today, at 25, she earns her living from comics.
“I’m very lucky but I also work very hard,”
she assures.
I think it's very important for young artists to know one thing: I'm so glad I didn't switch to digital drawing because a lot of my income, maybe around 50%, comes from selling originals .
I had no idea when I started in this industry that such a thing was possible.
Without this, making a living from my drawings would represent a much greater challenge..."
Material question, the designer did not break the bank.
“I use a crappy Pilot pen.
It's really difficult to use and it's tricky: you can't draw a straight line with it, like it's impossible... and I like that!”
She also renounced the systematic use of traditional frames, which were too expensive.
Guest of the First Print podcast, Zoe Thorogood explains that she rejects any label that we would like to attach to her.
And wanting to thwart expectations.
Since
It's Lonely
was, according to her, "
arty pretentious bullshit
" (sic), she continued with a story about
"sexy girls who fight monsters, in B-movie style"
.
She is currently finalizing the last chapter of this mini-series called
Hack/Slash: Back to School.
“We'll see if we bring it to France!
»
concludes
with enthusiasm this fan of video games fed up with
BioShock
and
Fallout,
two sagas populated by unforgettable mutant creatures
.
However, she plans to follow up her
“autobiographical novel
”:
It's Crowded at the Center of the Earth
would this time focus on her beloved brother, also a victim of depression.
The five avatars of Zoe Thorogood
The Cynic, The Honest and The Child, along with the realistic Zoe.
Zoe Thorogood / HiComics
The realistic-style character on the right of the image is none other than the narrator and heroine of
It's Lonely at the Center of the Earth,
Zoe Thorogood.
The thing is, she's rarely alone...
“The manga-style curmudgeon, I call her “The Cynic”. I shame him, like
[she takes a deeper voice]:
“Everything you do is uncomfortable!”.
It’s the adolescent “me” that never really disappears.
»
“
The wire man, with a very simple face, I call him “The Honest”.
I started drawing this character in college when I was 16-17, just to try to make my friends laugh and to express dark thoughts in a silly way, very frank thoughts.
I refer to this character with a male pronoun for some reason, which is very strange.
»
“
The little chibi-style
one [Japanese word designating a reduced and cute version of a pre-existing character, Editor's note],
I call it “The Child”,
deciphers Zoe Thorogood.
This is my very positive, naive and childish “me”.
I'm a pretty depressed person but I'm also strangely optimistic!
»
Zoe and her mother, each accompanied by their Happy, personification of their depression.
Zoe Thorogood / HiComics
Omnipresent throughout the album, Happy is Zoe's fifth avatar.
“This great demon is the representation of depression”
.
His face topped with horns (or ears?) is inspired by Ghibli films (notably “
Totoro's smile”
), the anime
Soul Eater
(Sun and Moon) and divergent eyes “
à la
Junji Itô
”.
The rest of his body is just a big black mass: "
I like the idea of depression being this formless thing that's constantly changing, because everyone experiences it a little differently."
Quite terrifying at the start of the comic, Happy is gradually tamed.
Collectors will be happy to know that clay figurines exist.
Cover of “It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth.”
Zoe Thorogood / HiComics
It's Lonely at the Center of the Earth,
by Zoe Thorogood, translated from English by Maxime Le Dain, HiComics, 200 pages, 27.95 euros.