Last week, as part of a university careers week, my coursemates and I received a virtual talk from illustrator and comic artist Maria Stoian. She also creates graphic design work, and teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art. She discussed the projects she had done throughout her career, and gave advice about pitching and breaking down contracted projects.
As part of her master's project, Stoian created a graphic novel collection of twenty real life stories of sexual violence. She explained to use how she chose to present each story in different illustrative styles and pacings, in order to represent the different voices telling the stories. The novel ('Take it as a Compliment'), went on to be published. Off the back of that project, Stoian has been invited to contribute to different anthologies focusing on feminism.
More recently, she's pitched to the online and print political comics magazine The Nib as her primary client, where she creates comics based on modern political issues such as disaster capitalism, climate change and Trump.
She also has a cat called Jellybean who she created a cardboard 'washing-machine' for during lockdown.
I enjoyed the talk. I found her tips for working in the creative industry helpful, and enjoyed seeing the wide range of projects she has worked on. I found it especially interesting how she draws from her personal life and her political views when illustration comics.
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