Zoe Si.
Bio: Hi!
I’m Zoe Si, a cartoonist and illustrator living and working in
Vancouver, Canada. I have been contributing cartoons to The New Yorker
since 2020. I also illustrate children’s books – most recently, the
Teeny Houdini chapter book series.
I practiced law for six years before switching over to cartooning and illustrating full-time. When I was a lawyer, I drew a lot of autobiographical cartoons as a way to decompress and find humour in difficult situations. Nowadays, most of my cartoons are still at least loosely autobiographical. I became a New Yorker cartoonist a month before lockdown, which has made for lots of interesting comics.
My desk after finishing a painted magazine cartoon.
Tools of choice:
- Pigma micron pens – assorted sizes
- Blackwing pencils
- Kneaded eraser
- Hunt 56 pen nib
- India ink
- Watercolour tubes (lamp black + Payne’s grey)
Not pictured:
- iPad Pro from 2017 (I draw using Procreate)
- Lightbox
I sketch all of my cartoon ideas on the iPad — it’s convenient having everything in one place, and it’s super easy to export PDFs directly to email when submitting weekly pitches. When a cartoon is bought, I often draw a final outline on the iPad, then print it out and trace it onto watercolour paper.
^ This cartoon was inked with a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen, but I didn’t end up loving how it looked so I didn’t use it for future cartoons. I don’t have a go-to medium for drawing finished cartoons – it’s a mix of what is convenient and what looks the best. I’m relatively new to single-panel cartooning and I’ve had to figure out how to make my cartoons print-worthy on the fly.
The first cartoon I ever sold was illustrated on the iPad:
After this, I figured should probably learn to draw my finishes by hand – it’s not necessary, but I just wanted to take part in this fun tradition and challenge myself. Thus, my second cartoon was born – drawn in skinny pen with pencil shading and a red ink highlight.
The pen weight and pencil shading don’t REALLY translate super well when scanned, so I stopped doing this too.
Nowadays, I will usually draw cartoons on the iPad if there’s a time constraint and it’s complex (like for Daily Cartoons, which need to be drawn and submitted between 7am and 9am PST)…
… in Blackwing pencil with a watercolour wash for a softer, more expressive tone…
…or with a nib pen when I am feeling sadistic.
Tool I wish I could use better: The nib pen. It is temperamental.
Tool I wish existed: A device that could instantly digitally archive ten years of random, undated sketchbook drawings.
Tricks:I found out the hard way that when drawing is your job, you really need to pay attention to ergonomics, unless you want your whole body to break in surprising ways. Eg: Getting a chunky pen grip for my Apple Pencil saved my hand. Also, this book is a wonderful resource for simple exercises/stretches. Not sexy, but necessary!
Misc: Here’s my ridiculously hairy dog with some timeless wisdom from Adam J Kurtz:
Website, etc:
Books:
Teeny Houdini #1: The Disappearing Act
Teeny Houdini #2: The Super-Secret Valentine
If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!