Flo Woolley is a comics artist & illustrator based in Leeds, England. Flo’s recent book, Skin Deep, is a queer horror romance. It was published in 2024 by Silver Sprocket. Flo makes web comics and zines too. Here’s Flo!
Who are you, Flo Woolley?
I’m primarily a comic artist and illustrator, and also a person! My work revolves around imaginary worlds and characters, often with themes of queerness and a healthy dose of the post-apocalyptic and/or futuristic. Aside from art I like bouldering, anime, and cooking big meals.
If I am not mistaken, you live in Leeds, a city in West Yorkshire, England. What brought you to this northern English city that, according to Wikipedia, played such an important role in the Industrial Revolution?
Education! Leeds Arts University runs a Comic and Concept Art course that I really wanted to get into, and luckily I did. It’s the reason I am where I am now.
Is there an art or comics scene/community in Leeds that you feel a part of? Is it a good place to be a creative person?
Absolutely. I’m part of the Leeds Comics Collective which is made of an eclectic group of comic nerds and creatives, and regularly has some sick projects/events on. I recently took part in the LCC anthology ‘Cryptids of Leeds’, which was a really cool way to connect with the city specifically from a comics perspective. There are also a ton of shops like OK Comics, Travelling Man, and The Bookish Type that stock some great stuff as well as hosting events like small press art markets and signings by local artists (including me! I did a signing earlier this year in OK Comics for Skin Deep).
What is your favorite thing about Leeds?
The creative scene! Not just art, but music too — the venues and bands around here are awesome and I’ve been to so many small gigs/creative events that I had a blast at. There are also some great queer spots like Wharf Chambers that put on indie events I always love.
What is your earliest memory of creating something you were proud of?
I did a piece of creative writing in Year 2 that my teacher liked so much she made me read it to the school assembly, and I rode that high for a while.
How did you start drawing comics? Formal training, self-taught?
I drew a few short comics growing up, but they were never my focus. I mainly drew characters and fanart – until I went to the LAU open day and checked out the CCA course, then I started reading as many webcomics as possible and practising drawing comic pages. Obviously the course taught me the proper fundamentals and built up my skills, so I guess I’m formally trained!
Some of your backgrounds and buildings, especially the floating city in Falling for You, remind me of the work of Simon Gane. Just curious about your other influences in art, film, or music. What inspires you to draw?
A really big early influence was Studio Ghibli films! I watched Spirited Away all the time growing up, and only realised a few years ago how deeply rooted it is in my psyche; all my environments have flavours of Yubaba’s bathhouse – labyrinthine buildings with tacked-on additions, drainpipes and vents plastered all over the back walls, steep staircases with sheer drops. Castle in the Sky was another one, with its rickety industrial town contrasted by an ethereal yet overgrown floating city. I could wax poetic for ages about the richness and creativity of all the little details in Miyazaki’s films but safe to say his work is a huge inspiration for me.
Webcomics are also something I regularly draw on for my work — Countdown to Countdown by Velinxi, Tiger, Tiger, by Petra Erika Nordlund, ShootAround by Susanna “Suspu” Nousiainen, amongst hundreds of others. The online platform of webcomics gives way to such a variety of stories and art styles that you can just dip in and out of completely for free. I think it’s awesome.
Your recent comic for Silver Sprocket, Skin Deep, is described as a queer horror romance. Is Skin Deep a one-off story, or is there more to this world that you’d like to develop and is this a genre you intend to explore further?
I like the one-off format for Skin Deep, since I wanted to imply a wider cycle to the story without having to actually elaborate on it. The genre was definitely a step outside my comfort zone, as I usually go for more action-style stories with comedic tones, but I had a lot of fun with it. I think for now I want to allow myself to let loose and just create what I want, but pushing myself to try something different with Skin Deep was really valuable and I’ll probably end up returning to horror at some point.
Your zine-in-progess Scalers is about post-apocalyptic climbing, can you elaborate on that?
Scalers is now finished! I debuted it at Thought Bubble, and put it up for sale on my Gumroad – but I’m hoping to get it stocked in some local places eventually too.
Essentially it’s a passion project born of my love for both climbing and worldbuilding. While I was working as a KP last year I got really bored on shift and started thinking about urban bouldering since it’s a super interesting way of bringing a traditionally rural sport into the city, and then the image popped into my head of a broken down cityscape where people have to climb to survive/provide for others. I already have a thing for post-apocalyptic stories, especially ones that do something interesting with the trope, so I spent the rest of the shift daydreaming about all the different roles people would need to fill, how society would recover, how technology would progress, the kind of cultural phenomena that would occur, etc. Worldbuilding is endlessly fascinating to me and Scalers was a great outlet for that when I had a very boring job.
The web comic Souvenir is done in collaboration with Ivy Rae Robinson – A.K.A Fogswirls, what’s it about, how does this collaboration work, and where can people read it?
Where to start! I came up with the idea for an edgy spy character named Héloïse when I was about 17, then when I became friends with Ivy at university we decided to revisit her and give her some lore/surrounding characters, and from that Souvenir was born!
The tagline we have on Webtoons (mainly where we publish the comic) is: ‘After being accused of a murder she didn’t commit, trainee spy Héloïse is ready to leave her old life behind – but the ghosts of her past have a way of catching up to her.’ Essentially it’s about cycles, healing from trauma, found family, and most importantly, gay girls.
Both Ivy and I write the story/script together, then I do thumbnails while Ivy does the sketch and lineart – plus grey flats to make colouring easier for me – then I finish things up with colour and text! It’s a pipeline we worked out over the course of Act 1, and we’re still streamlining the process two years later while starting work on Act 3. It’s awesome to work on such a long-term project with a close friend, especially when working on aspects I find difficult, like plotting story points.
Physical copies of Act 1 and 2 are also available on Ivy’s Ko-Fi (@fogswirls)!
11. Are you able to support yourself by doing comics and illustration work and if not, what do you do to feed yourself?
Until June this year, I was working as a kitchen porter in a restaurant, but then I got offered a gig working on a really exciting graphic novel project for Hachette! It’s titled Black Dolls and is written by author Rachel Faturoti, and that’s what’s feeding me currently – supplemented by commissions and tabling at events!
12. Social media is a challenge for many artists and creators. Are you able to maintain a healthy relationship with it? What do you think about its role in promoting your work?
This is one I’ve really been thinking about a lot recently. I think social media is an invaluable tool for artists right now, but it’s also subject to the whims of the almighty Algorithm, as well as whichever lunatic is running the platform — see the recent X update taking away people’s ability to opt out of having their posts scraped for generative AI.
I have a relatively good relationship with social media despite this, though I do occasionally slip into spirals about follower counts and how many likes certain posts get, as I’m sure lots of online artists do. I just have to remind myself that comparison is completely useless, and that my work will find the people who want to see it — as long as I keep posting instead of getting discouraged by factors out of my control.
13. What do you have planned for 2025?
The aforementioned Black Dolls is set to be a duology, so I’ll be working on that project throughout next year until early 2026! Intimidating, but wonderful to have a paid comics job for at least another year. Aside from that, Ivy and I will be working hard on Act 3 of Souvenir, which we’re both really excited to start publishing online. I also applied for the ShortBox comics fair; if I manage to get in for that I’ll have another short comic project to work on, and if not then I’ll probably just make one anyway!
Read More Interviews
Thanks, Flo! Read more interviews with comics artists here!