We chat with author and illustrator Sam Prentice-Jones about Arcana: The Lost Heirs, which follows five young witches who are about to discover that the truth is the most dangerous magic of all.
Hi, Sam! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m a writer, illustrator, songwriter and cafe owner (I’m one of those irritating people with my fingers in 100 pies lol). I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator since about 2019 when I graduated Uni and moved to Brighton with my now husband. I started working mostly in editorial and marketing but in recent years I had the opportunity to work on some book covers and interiors and I just adored it so it only felt right to finally start acting on my lifelong dream to write a graphic novel!
When did you first discover your love for writing and illustrating?
I’ve been drawing and making up my own stories since before I can remember. I spent so much of my youth writing and drawing my own versions of my favourite books and comics but I actually didn’t really realise that it could be a proper career until I got to university and discovered that you could do a degree in illustration! From there everything just clicked into place and it was like I’d been training my whole life for it.
Your debut graphic novel, Arcana: The Lost Heirs, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Queer, Friendship, cosy, witchy, mystery
What can readers expect?
Readers should expect to fall in love with a fabulous and relatable cast of characters as this book is definitely an ensemble piece, and they should expect to find themselves sucked into a cinematic blend of cosy, slice of life and magical mysteries that can only be untangled by facing your past.
Where did the inspiration for Arcana: The Lost Heirs come from?
I’d always dreamed of writing my own graphic novel but the right story had never really landed in my lap until the start of 2021 when I had just finished working on a personal project of redesigning a full tarot deck. I was so steeped in the imagery and thematics of the world of Tarot that I thought “wouldn’t it be cool to create a narrative where the themes of each tarot card inform the plot”. After that I created this cast of characters based on people that I love and the story just began to snowball from there!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Honestly, one of my favourite chapters to write was chapter 11 “Justice” because it’s mostly just my gang hanging out and chatting. There’s no crazy otherworldly shenanigans going on so it was just lovely to get to see the group of friends just being friends.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing and illustrating? How did you overcome them?
My main issue I had was getting my page count down to an acceptable level! My instinct is to give everything loads of space and to always draw these big sweeping pages filled with silence but ARCANA was starting to look like the Doomsday book lol. So figuring out how to condense pages so that they still had the artistic integrity and atmosphere that I wanted was probably my biggest hurdle.
What’s next for you?
Well of course we have the sequel to The Lost Heirs coming in June – The Cursed Fate. I’d love to expand the series further, I’ve got so much more I want to do in this world and with these characters, but my next project is much closer to home and is way more slice of life/autobiographical which I’m super excited about.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
I am desperate to get my hands on the next volume of “Les Normaux” which I’ve been a fan of for YEARS and am so thrilled that it’s finally come to print. I also really want to read “Shy Trans Banshee” from Nico Tortorella because I really loved the first book from his series – Bored Gay Werewolf. I feel like it’s a spiritual sister to ARCANA.
