Originally from the suburbs of Chicago, Sara Varon is an illustrator, graphic novelist, and creator of children’s comics. Varon had been an avid reader of comics throughout the 1990s, but she didn’t start to pursue comics as an art-making career until she started attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1992, where she got a BFA in 1995.
Initially, Varon went to Lewis and Clark College to pursue a career in Chemistry in 1989, before pivoting and attending SAIC. Later, Varon attended the School of Visual Arts, where she earned her MFA in Illustration in 2002.
Varon, who is a lecturer at SAIC, began teaching at the school in 2021. She enjoys teaching because it connects her to a community of artists who are frequently in the process of making, and she likes to help in that. Varon appreciates the creative energy of SAIC and finds it refreshing to work with others because she spends so much time alone when illustrating.
As a child, Varon casually consumed comic strips like “Peanuts.” She discovered indie comics through a job she had as a designer, where she had a lot of affinity towards comics that featured animal characters and the breaking of gender norms.
Varon finds a lot of joy in the storytelling aspects of comics making. On the subject, she said, “I like being able to give life to the characters that I had designed.” She also appreciates the fantastical nature of storytelling through comics. “I enjoy telling stories in a world that is much nicer than our own world. Being able to tell a story about a world that is, not necessarily fictional, but where anything can happen,” she said.
Varon described her process as having both evolved and devolved over the years. On the topic of her process, she said, “I usually think about what I want to learn about because it’s such a long process that you probably want to be learning something while you’re working on it.”
She has a printmaking background, so in addition to her practice as a cartoonist, Varon is consistently doing something print-related. One of her projects involved making bandanas for a rescue where she fosters dogs. Helping animals through her art is one of Varon’s goals as an artist.
Varon said that when it comes to audience, she really only makes work for herself. “I’m just really making comics for me, and I must have the mentality of a ten-year-old,” she said.
Having real-world experiences is really important to Varon’s work. “I feel like I need to take stuff in before I can put stuff out. If you put me on a desert island, I would just sit and do absolutely nothing, I wouldn’t make anything at all, probably,” she said.
During her time in New York, Varon didn’t see herself as part of a comics scene. Instead, she was more a part of a vast community of picture book creators and writers. As her work progressed, she found herself more and more in a comics community.
While Varon has roots in self-publishing, she hasn’t self-published her work in a while. She’s been publishing with First Second Books since their inception in 2006, and has published her graphic novels with a number of different publishers.
In 2004, while in the process of her first book deal for her picture book “Chicken and Cat,” Varon sought out an agent after having issues with an editor, finding it useful in the process of selling ideas to and working with larger publishers.
Currently, Varon is working with First Second Books on book two of a three-book series for kids about animal characters.
