| Birth Date: | 7 June 1998 |
| Birth Place: | Bradford, England,United Kingdom |
| Alma Mater: | De Montfort University Teesside University |
| Occupation: | Comics artist |
| Years Active: | 2019-present |
| Notable Works: | The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth |
Zoe Thorogood (born 7 June 1998) is a British comic book author. She is most well-known for The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott and It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth.
Thorogood was born on 7 June 1998 in Bradford, England.[1] [2] She studied video game art at De Montfort University in Leicester, which led her to an internship in 2017 creating design concepts at Splash Damage. She continued her studies at Teesside University between 2018 and 2019.[1] [3]
In 2019, Thorogood began working in comics as a freelance artist. Her breakthrough came very early on, when she attended a convention organised in London by Image Comics. The publisher was immediately impressed by the artist's portfolio, and introduced her to other industry figures, including Kieron Gillen.[4] He saw in her "the future of comics". This had a considerable impact on the aspiring author.[5]
While she has suffered from sight problems since the age of 3, in 2017 she learned that her retina was slowly being detached, and that she could eventually go blind.[6] This personal experience inspired her first graphic novel, The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott. It was published in 2020 by Avery Hill Publishing. Although inspired by her personal story, the character of Billie Scott is not an incarnation of Thorogood, as she would later explain in her second graphic novel.[7]
In addition to her personal work, she began working for other authors as an illustrator. She is collaborating on the comic Damnation: Poppy's Inferno, with Poppy and Ryan Cady on the script and Amilcar Pinna on the drawing. It was published by Z2 in December 2020. She did her first variant cover for Image Comics with issue 11 of Crowded, by Christopher Sebela.[8] In 2021, she drew the issue #2 of W. Maxwell Prince's comic anthology HAHA, [9] as well as Joe Hill's comic title Rain.[10]
Thorogood's second graphic novel, It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth, was published in 2022.[11] It's Lonely... is an autobiography, focusing on Zoe's life through the last six months of 2021. It was not originally intended for publication; it was written during a depressive period. Finally, she decided to share a few illustrations on the Internet. She received messages from readers who identified with her work and her experience and felt that her work deserved to become a full-fledged book.[12] Forbes ranked it in 'The Best Graphic Novels of 2022' category.[13]
In 2023, she was nominated for an Eisner Award in five categories (Best Writer/Artist; Best Painter/Multimedia Artist; Best Cover Artist; Best Graphic Memoir; Best Adaptation From Another Medium).[14] Despite not being awarded in any of the main categories, she was awarded that year's Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award.[15]
The first project Thorogood took up following the release of It's Lonely.... was Hack/Slash: Back to School published by Image Comics, set in the universe created by Tim Seeley.[16] She is also the writer of the comic Life Is Strange: Forget-Me-Not, adapted from the video game Life is Strange, with Claudia Leonary on drawings, Andrea Izzo on colours, and Titan Comics publishing.[15]
In addition to her work in the independent comics sector, she also designed the character of Spider-UK for Marvel.