It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

“ I’ve been considering stabbing myself in the neck with a sharp knife,” Zoe tells us. In the opening pages, we are confronted with a blunt and excruciating picture of her mental illness at work. Thorogood is not shy about her priorities. But the comic is primarily about Thorogood’s own experience with suicidal depression. The book - nominally structured around six months of Thorogood’s life in 2021 - is about many things: It depicts an overwhelming and whimsical trip to a comics convention, documents a doomed international romance, and tells the broader story of her development as an artist.

Zoe Thorogood is one such cartoonist, and her new graphic memoir, It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth (Image, 2022), is a dizzying pyrotechnic cocktail of self-expression that will shred your expectations of what an autobiographical comic “should” look like and then cut your heart out of your chest with a pen. Just try to build a tidy little theory and watch as some talented cartoonist comes along and blows your bullshit straight to hell. Autobio comics are way too weird for that to be true. And the complex interplay between visual and verbal helps reveal the elusive nature of the cartoonist’s “true” self. On another level, you have verbal representation as expressed through narrative text boxes. On one level, you have the visual representation of the artist via their cartoon avatar. It is relatively simple to schematize the presentation of the self in autobiographical comics. One to watch for the 2020s.Content Warning: This review includes a discussion of suicide and self-harm. One to watch for the 2020s.' -Forbes 'Thorogood elevates the dark material with her expressive use of the comics medium and the urgency of her voice.

This is an absolute must-read, and without a doubt one of the best comic creations of recent years.' -Monkeys Fighting Robots Forbes' 'Best Graphic Novels of 2022' list 'Thorogood elevates the dark material with her expressive use of the comics medium and the urgency of her voice. Centre of the Earth is an important work as a discussion of trauma, depression, and the hope that can keep one moving forward.

Thorogood's courageous honesty is supported by her hilarious deadpan humor and then tied all together by her absolutely insane artistic vision. The skill and ingenuity of her visual storytelling approach is staggering and awe-inspiring. This has the force of a fist punching through the page.' -Publishers Weekly (starred review) 'A wondrous achievement as both an autobiographical discussion and as a piece of the comics medium. 'Already pushing herself to new limits, Thorogood more than delivers on the promise of her debut.

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood