Sophia Zarders (she/her & they/them) is an illustrator, comic artist, and pop culture queen from Long Beach, California, and currently living in Vancouver, Canada.
Sophia's longstanding career as an illustrator spans publishing, editorial, educational, entertainment, and public art. They're most recent book You're Funny For A: The Illustrated Guide to Trans Comedians, Non-Binary Comics, and Funny Women in the Comedy Scene was published by Silver Sprocket in 2022, and they have self-published an expansive library of zines and comics. Their work was recently selected for Notes From the Bathroom Line, a Harper Collins book about women and trans comedians. Sophia's editorial work has been featured in publications around the globe, including PRISM, The Nation, Zora, and the Socialist Review.
Sophia was recently an in-house illustrator for the Simbi Foundation, a leading non-profit in educational children's books based in Vancouver. In 2021, they were selected to illustrate a poster highlighting LGBTQ history for the New York Department of Education series, "Hidden Voices," and in 2020 they were invited to design a billboard for the public art group, SaveArtSpace, which was displayed in two locations in West Los Angeles. Numerous organizations and non-profits have commissioned Sophia for empowering posters and public art, including the ACLU, Arts Council of Long Beach, the LA County Office of Education, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Forward Together. Their visual art has been exhibited in the residency program at Somos Art House in Berlin, Germany, and more recently at Haight Street Art Center in San Francisco.
Sophia is currently finishing an MFA degree in Visual Art from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. Their thesis project explores the intersections of representation, historical figures, and the performativity of race, gender, sexuality, and social hierarchies, through the media of paper dolls, video, and garments. You can read about this project here.
Contact sophiazarders@gmail.com with any inquiries. CV.