Zara Slattery is a graphic novelist, illustrator and tutor. Her first full length graphic memoir, Coma Comic, was shortlisted for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition 2018 and longlisted for the Laydeez Do Comics Awards 2019. Zara is a comics finalist in The Arts Foundation Futures Awards.
Having studied an MA in Design Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University exploring the interplay between illustration and theatre, Zara has brought her interests together in the form of graphic narratives. Her self-published comics include Two Birds (a graphic short collection with Myfawny Tristram) and Don’t Call Me A Tomboy (A WildSlattern Production with Kirsten Wild). Her work playfully explores identity, art and feminism.
Zara was commissioned in 2012 to run Sketches By Boz comic workshops for the British Council in Greece and Malta. She teaches comic art, drawing and painting at the Friends Centre, Brighton and runs community workshops in Sussex and around the UK. She lives in Brighton.
Her graphic memoir, Coma Comic, will be published by Myriad in March 2021.
Interviews and Features
The Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2020: Zara Slattery, shortlisted
The 2020 Arts Foundation’s Futures Awards announced Zara Slattery, author of upcoming graphic memoir, Comic Coma, as one of their four shortlisted artists within the comics category, alongside Esther McManus, Danny Noble and Jess Taylor.
Broken Frontier covered the awards with a lovely interview with each artist, online HERE.
ZARA SLATTERY: “I started as an illustrator who likes to tell stories. I’ve always experimented with visual storytelling, in the past combining live action and illustration for both live performances and character and story development. I started playing around with comics after joining a writing group and being introduced to some amazing comic books and artists. I love creating silent comics and very much like to process of writing as I draw, and weaving myself along a story. Equally I enjoy the structure of translating text, thumbnailing and researching. My themes vary from silly to serious; and tend to be on subjects of identity, art, culture, and graphic medicine. I share my work online, and my work-in-progress primarily on Instagram. Much of my work can be seen on my website and I have a poorly run Etsy shop.”