Gemma Correll (born 3 February 1984) is a British cartoonist and illustrator who is known for her comics depicting personal, relatable anxieties and pugs.
Early life and education
Correll was born in Ipswich and attended the
Norwich School of Art and Design
Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) is a public university in Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom that specialises in art, design and media. It was founded as Norwich School of Design in 1845 and has a long history of arts education. It gained ful ...
, graduating in 2006 with a BA (hons) in Graphic Design, specializing in Illustration.
Career
Correll recounts that she "felt somehow compelled" to start drawing "little stories" at 5 years old, both as a distraction from her anxieties and as a way to connect with her fellow schoolmates. She sold ''The Chatterbox'', a self-published comic, to other students and teachers for a nominal sum to earn pocket money for snacks and soda. She entered university intending to major in English Literature and Education, but switched her major to Graphic Design before long. While attending art school, her professor urged her to pursue the work he saw in her sketchbook. During her final year, she was able to sell self-designed merchandise. Although she worked part-time jobs after graduating, she continued to doodle in her spare time. Her first paid commission was designing a brochure of vacation packages for
Virgin Holidays
Virgin Holidays Limited, trading as Virgin Atlantic Holidays, is a company within the Virgin Group that offers holidays worldwide with destinations including the US and Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and the Fa ...
.
In 2009, after selling her own products at craft fairs and online via Etsy.com, Correll became a full-time illustrator and joined the Anna Goodson Illustration Agency, which helped her gain exposure to numerous clients that include
Hallmark Cards
Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a private, family-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce Hall, Hallmark is the oldest and largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1985, the company was award ...
, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', and
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
.
Correll illustrated the ''Pugly'' series of children's books from author
Pamela Butchart
Pamela Butchart is a Scottish children's author and high school philosophy teacher. Butchart is best known for her books, ''The Spy Who Loved School Dinners'' and ''My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat'', both of which won book awards.
Education a ...
. She has contributed regularly to ''
The Nib
The Nib is an American online daily comics publication focused on political cartoons, graphic journalism, essays and memoir about current affairs. Founded by cartoonist Matt Bors in September 2013, The Nib is an independent member-supported pu ...
'' since 2014.
In 2012, she was featured in a month-long solo exhibition at the Land gallery in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
. Her work was featured in 2021 as part of the ''Emerging Artist Showcase'' at the
Cartoon Art Museum
The Cartoon Art Museum (CAM) is a California art museum that specializes in the art of comics and cartoons. It is the only museum in the Western United States dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of all forms of cartoon art. The permanent ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
Correll cites
Lynda Barry
Linda Jean Barry (born January 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist.
Barry is best known for her weekly comic strip ''Ernie Pook's Comeek''. She garnered attention with her 1988 illustrated novel ''The Good Times are Killing Me'', about an interr ...
as her biggest inspiration and adds she has been influenced by the works of
Kate Beaton
Kathryn Moira Beaton (born 8 September 1983) is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip ''Hark! A Vagrant'', which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books '' The Princess and the Po ...
Terry Deary
William Terence Deary (born 3 January 1946) is a British children's author of over 200 books, selling over 25 million copies in over 40 languages, best known as the writer of the ''Horrible Histories'' series. Since 1994 he has been one of Britai ...
,
Julie Doucet
Julie Doucet (born December 31, 1965) is a Canadian
Tom Gauld
Tom Gauld (born 1976) is a Scottish cartoonist and illustrator. His style reflects his self-professed fondness of "deadpan comedy, flat dialogue, things happening offstage and impressive characters". Others note that his work "combines pathos ...
,
Carl Giles
Ronald "Carl" Giles OBE (29 September 1916 – 27 August 1995), often referred to simply as Giles, was a cartoonist who worked for the British newspaper the '' Daily Express''.
His cartoon style was a single topical highly detailed panel, us ...
Gary Larson
Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist, environmentalist, and former musician. He is the creator of ''The Far Side'', a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fif ...
,
Simone Lia
Simone Lia is an English cartoonist and author.
Early life and education
Born to Maltese parents, Lia grew up in Haverhill, Suffolk.
She studied art in Ipswich, illustration at the University of Brighton, and did an MA in communication in ar ...
,
Ronald Searle
Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's S ...
, and
Posy Simmonds
Rosemary Elizabeth "Posy" Simmonds MBE, FRSL (born 9 August 1945) is a British newspaper cartoonist, and writer and illustrator of both children's books and graphic novels. She is best known for her long association with ''The Guardian'', for wh ...
.
Selected bibliography
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Personal life
Correll resides in
Orange County, California
Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
with her husband, the collage artist Anthony Zinonos, and their trio of rescued
pug
The Pug is a breed of dog originally from China, with physically distinctive features of a wrinkly, short-muzzled face and curled tail. The breed has a fine, glossy coat that comes in a variety of colors, most often light brown (fawn) or blac ...