Vivian Zhou is a Chinese-Canadian cartoonist and animator who lives in Halifax. Zhou is a graduate of the Bachelor of Animation program at Sheridan College in Ontario. A sequel to her debut graphic novel Atana and the Firebird is scheduled for publication in the summer of 2025. Zhou’s short comics have been published in several anthologies and some were collected in Sail: A Mini Comic Collection self published with assistance from The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo in 2020.
Fiction (Juvenile, Graphic novel)
Atana and the Firebird
New York: HarperAlley, 2023.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Atana’s island may be quiet and peaceful, but mostly, it’s lonely. With the outside world full of magic hunters who would stop at nothing to capture a mermaid like her, Atana has never been brave enough to swim far from her island’s shores and seek the answers to her mysterious past—until a firebird named Ren unexpectedly crashes into her life.
Ren’s arrival does not go unnoticed, as it has been hundreds of years since a firebird last landed on Earth. Determined to both protect Ren and finally chase the answers she’s longed for, Atana embarks on an adventure that takes her and the firebird to strange new islands and entangles them with the powerful yet secretive Witch Queen.
Generous though the Witch Queen’s offer of protection may be, an invitation to the Blue Palace can’t come without a price. And while the Palace’s splendid halls and library might hold the key to Atana’s past, will she be willing to pay the cost when it risks her chance of a bright new future?