Meet Zoe Si, the Vancouver-Based Cartoonist Making Politics Personal (and Funny)

Getting a cartoon published in The New Yorker’s daily feed looks something like this: you create and submit your draft drawing—sometimes at 3 a.m. in a political-stress-fuelled trance. If you’re selected, you get an email at 7 a.m. saying they want to buy it. You have two hours to deliver the final product—and, before you know it, your pro-choice doodle is out there for millions to see.

 

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It’s a fast-paced, turnaround-heavy endeavour that Vancouverite Zoe Si excels in: her New Yorker cartoons made her a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the Illustrated Reporting and Commentary category earlier this year. And cartooning wasn’t even her first career—Si practiced law for seven years prior to becoming a full-time artist. “I started drawing autobiographical cartoons about being in law school and being a lawyer,” she says, “and it unintentionally became my emotional outlet.”

It was also great practice for political cartooning. “Our everyday lives are politicized, and drawing comics about topical things is what I’ve always done,” explains Si. From reproductive rights to COVID-19 panic to pop-culture blowups (her cartoon on the infamous Oscars slap was published barely a day after the event), her takes are always hot and hilarious. Si’s career in family law is behind her, but her social justice work remains: she’s an ambassador for Elimin8Hate, the advocacy arm of the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. In addition to her web comics and cartoons, Si illustrates children’s books—her latest, called How to Teach Your Cat a Trick, launched this fall.

 

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