It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth: This Book Is for Someone, Somewhere.

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Thorogood's representations of herself are also striking. Thus, she portrays herself visually in about half a dozen different ways, with multiple versions of herself often interacting, arguing and competing for attention. The result is a riotous and often confusing explosion of her thoughts and feelings that leap out at the reader.

Fast forward to this May and the Eisner judging panel named Thorogood in the best writer/artist and best graphic memoir categories for It’s Lonely and in best painter/multimedia artist (interior art), best adaptation from another medium and best cover artist, for Rain, an adaptation of a horror novella by Joe Hill.This is a highly self-conscious book, capturing the very human inner contradictions and inner dialogues we all face, particularly during moments of self-doubt. Thorogood is very open and honest—often under the guise of self-deprecating humor—about her mental health, issues with life and struggles with her family. There is a discussion on depression being passed down through generations while the elder generations view mental health as a ‘ dirty secret’ and don’t like how openly she speaks about her own, something I’ve experienced or seen far too often. This is a highly empathetic book, one that you may likely feel is showing you to yourself through the lens of her own self-analysis and so much so that she even jokes about how often people call her work relatable. It is existence exposed in all its messy flaws and joys, a book teeming with life and the feeling that ‘ you’re getting older but you don’t know how to grow up.’

I know this published a while ago, but I saw it here and based on this cover, I just really wanted to read it. Ironically, I had no idea what it was about. It sat in my shelf for a little bit though because I didn't have a deadline with this one. Thorogood elevates the dark material with her expressive use of the comics medium and the urgency of her voice. One to watch for the 2020s." ― Forbes There is disappointment. There are failures. There is self-sabotage and unanswered questions and the author doesn’t tie up all the loose ends with a neat bow. It’s messy. It’s ambiguous. It’s real.I think Zoe's clever use of her wild art works in her favor. Drawing weird faces over people (Similar to Pun Pun Manga) and also having the narrative go all over the place, making it really feel like you're inside her mind just like your inside your own with various thoughts. The art is the strongest part of the story, helping convey her very real and very scary thoughts of killing herself. I can't help but thank Zoe for creating this work of perfection. There are reasons as to why people with mental health issues do not come forward. And the 1 star rate review is a good example to why.

I don't want to kill myself because he left me. I want to kill myself because I understand why he did.

Thorogood elevates the dark material with her expressive use of the comics medium and the urgency of her voice. One to watch for the 2020s. -Forbes wowww..im utterly speechless after reading this one. I don't even know where to start but I guess I'll just start here. depression is messy. it's also not the same for everyone (the onset of it, the duration, and the highs and lows) especially if you have different forms of depression, manic depression (bpd), mdd etc. zoe does an EXCEPTIONAL job of illustrating this and her own experiences of depression in "it's lonely at the centre of the universe." Typically in mainstream media, we tend to see depression look the same and very dramatic, and sometimes (sadly) romanticized. but zoo's experience is unique to herself, yet still relatable and familiar to many. Zeo Thorogood documents six months of her life. The result is a meditation on depression and how it informs and deforms every aspect of your life. Her philosophy, her illustrations, and her worldview are IMO worth taking a look at if you can handle the subject material.

I've read a lot of comics (and other) memoirs lately about depression, but none quite as lively and inventive as this. Faced with the knowledge that there are many such stories out there--I just read Debbie Tung's comic memoir about her depression recently)--and feeling self-conscious about her adding yet another one to the pile, she nevertheless sallies forth. But over the course of some 3200 days Thorogood faces her depression, including some suicidal ideation, exacerbated by the isolation of the pandemic, and shares with us the meta-narrative of her stylistic choices. That range of expression gives the story multiple emotional threads to follow, taking the form of conflicting drives warring with each other. Every avatar of Zoe (the character) has her best interest at heart, to be sure, but they all exist on different levels of emotional intelligence and disagree about what the proper steps for her actually are. This is a dark comic by Zoe Thorogood, a British artist who was 23 at the time of publication. She is suffering from depression and has been since she was 14. It feels weird to give a star rating to something auto biographical, but honestly, I had to give a five-star rating because of my experience reading this book. I withdrew my energy from it. I do the projects and make the things I want to make. I am polite and appropriate when people compliment or admire me, I hold the intellectual knowledge of their intentions, which are good and pro social. I was recently lying near death in the ICU and I was extremely comforted by how I have spent my time and the work I leave behind.I say this with the caveat that the author pulls no punches in her depiction of the depths of mental illness. In fact, she includes her own content warning. It is an unflinchingly stark and personal story of her own battles with depression – depicted as a grinning monster following her around – and her suicidal thoughts. But it is also funny and life-affirming as it documents how creating comics pretty much saved her life. Thorogood elevates the dark material with her expressive use of the comics medium and the urgency of her voice. One to watch for the 2020s. - Forbes This graphic novel takes a classic approach to what art is, the reflection of our own cognition. As in, it’s not a mirror of reality, it’s not about how realistically we render an image but rather it’s a mirror of our thinking, our emotions, expressions of reality that don’t naturally have physical form. Thorogood’s cognition takes on multiple forms in this book, from a realistic rendering to a manga influence, to something formless, straight out of a Hayao Miyazaki movie. At the same time, I do believe creative expression is really helpful, so maybe people will read this and channel their own negative emotions into art.