Hope Larson

Hope Raue Larson (born September 17, 1982) is an American illustrator and cartoonist. Her main field is comic books.

Biography

Larson is of German and Swedish descent. She grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and attended Carolina Day School. Upon graduation from high school, she matriculated at Rochester Institute of Technology and then transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she graduated with a BFA in 2004. She then moved to Toronto with her husband, Canadian Bryan Lee O'Malley. In 2005, they moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

From 2008 until 2010, Larson and O'Malley lived in Asheville, North Carolina. They relocated to California. She and O'Malley divorced in 2014.

Career

While Larson was still in college, Scott McCloud took an interest in her illustrations, encouraging her to create comics. Soon after, she was invited to the webcomics anthology site Girlamatic and produced her first professional comic, a web serial entitled I Was There & Just Returned. Afterwards, Larson concentrated on a number of small, hand-made minicomics, combining her interests in comics, screenprinting, and bookmaking.