When Zoe Si published her first cartoon in The New Yorker in early 2020, she joined an elite group of artists whose work graces the storied magazine’s pages. But for the Vancouver-based cartoonist, who had only recently left a career in family law, the milestone wasn’t just a personal victory, it was a breakthrough in an industry that remains dominated by older white men.

“There’s just no space,” Si says of editorial cartooning in Canadian media. Currently, there’s only one other prominent female cartoonist in the country: Gabrielle Drolet, who contributes to The Globe & Mail. In the United States, Barbara Brandon-Croft’s series “Where I’m Coming From,” a strip about a young Black woman, made history in the 1990s as the first work by a Black female artist run in a national syndicate. But other than that, there’s a dearth of cartoonists that look similar to Si or cover the topics concerning her generation. “There’s this handful of older men who’ve done it forever,” Si says. “They’re very talented, [and it’s] hard to break in when the same spots have been filled for decades.” 

That barrier to the industry is partly why Si didn’t start out as a cartoonist. A lifelong doodler, she grew up in a Chinese Singaporean immigrant household where creative pursuits were never discouraged, but also never taken seriously, either. “My dad would buy me things, like a microscope set and a telescope, to try and pull my interest away from drawing,” she recalls. “Now, he says, ‘you would play with it for a week, and then you would just go back to drawing.’”

To the relief of her parents, her academic path was high-achieving: Si skipped the last year of undergrad, took the LSAT at 18 and entered law school by 20. She quickly realized it was all going to be a ton of “stressful, overwhelming” work, with hundreds of pages to study a day. To find balance and maintain her sanity, Si started a secret blog on Tumblr where she would post one cartoon a day for a year, often as a way to relieve her stress. Her drawings quickly gained traction and engagement, encouraging her to keep going.

But it wasn’t until a surprise book deal from Penguin Random House landed in her inbox in 2016, asking if she’d like to illustrate a few children’s books, that she began to consider cartooning as a viable career. Over time, a slow trickle of children’s book projects, festival appearances and online engagement helped build a following, though it wasn’t exactly lucrative. Then came COVID—and an inflection point. Burnt out from the growing emotional intensity of family law, she finally stepped away from her legal career in 2020. 

Later that year, she sold her first cartoon to The New Yorker, an outlet she didn’t even know accepted submissions until 2015, when she watched the  documentary Very Semi-Serious. Since then, Si had been regularly submitting ideas, and been regularly rejected. 

In a field that has historically looked one way, and only given opportunities to those who looked the same, doors opened for Si when Emma Allen—a young woman around her age and the youngest and first female cartoon editor in the publication’s history—stepped into the role at the prestigious magazine. She took an interest in Si’s work, making her a frequent contributor.

Since then, Si’s cartoons—especially her daily contributions reacting to current events like the recent US election and perils of doomscrolling—have offered catharsis not just to readers, but to herself. “It’s a way to process stress,” she says. “Even now, cartoons are how I make sense of things.” 

Speaking to her ability to understand the moment, in 2022, Si was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning, in part thanks to her inclusive depictions of Asian, Black and brown families and sharp punchlines. It’s a recognition that still feels surreal. “It was a rollercoaster. Every time I have a weird day, I just remember that happened,” she says. “It reminds me there’s purpose to what I’m doing.”

Along with The New Yorker, her work now appears in various outlets, granting her the ability to not just dream up images of everyday joy and goofiness, but to delve deeper into the hard stuff, too, from the political climate to her own mental health. Recently, she worked with The Emancipator to create cartoons touching on themes of anti-racism; and for Like The Wind, Si’s cartoons have touched on how physical exercise has been a catharsis for her as life feels increasingly overwhelming.

“I had a little bit of an existential crisis earlier this year,” Si explains. “We have this dictator in the U.S., the world is in such a different place, where do cartoons go? The lion’s share of The New Yorker’s content has always been funny cartoons that try to encapsulate the vibe of the time, and political thoughts only here and there. So, it’s been nice being approached by more and different publications asking me to do [alternative work].” 

And her work — political or not — is resonating with readers and editors at other publications. “It’s really nice to have somebody [say], ‘Hey, we’re thinking of doing this story, do you have any ideas?,’” Si says. “I’ve always been of the mindset that if you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. But it’s really nice to have pre-existing structures; you can’t take that for granted. It’s a lot of work to carve out space for yourself in an industry, and cartooning especially.” 

In fact, Si has been an inspiration to many younger cartoonists and illustrators, also people of colour, keen to break into a creative industry — just take one glance at her Instagram, where she shares much of her work and followers regularly let her know how she’s shown them a creative path is possible.

Si’s biggest piece of advice for those looking to make a similar transition — don’t quit your day job. “The best work comes out of an authentic place,” Si explains. “I started doing this in the early days of Instagram, in 2013, when you could publish anything and it wasn’t for followers. So, a lot of it was really bad and cringy, but I developed a voice over time and learned how to lean into my strengths. You begin to trust that whoever needs to see your work will see it, you make what you know; that’s how you create sustainably as an artist.”

It’s an ethos that has shaped her career, and one she shares with others hoping to leap from more conventional paths into creative work. In a medium often dismissed as niche, Si’s work feels essential today in its incisiveness and uncompromising point of view. “It’s so scary to be an artist right now,” Si says, “but there is nothing more important than art at this time, because the artist’s job is to tell the truth and to be fearless about it.” For more thought-provoking stories and exclusive content, subscribe to 3 magazine’s print and digital editions today!