Carol Isaacs is a London-based cartoonist known as The Surreal McCoy. Her cartoons have been published in the New Yorker, Sunday Times, Readers’ Digest and many other unlikely places. Her first graphic memoir The Wolf of Baghdad – Memoir of a Lost Homeland was published by Myriad Editions UK in 2020 and was listed as the one Guardian’s best ten graphic books of that year. Her work has featured in The Inking Woman – 250 years of British Women Cartoon and Comic Artists. She was cartoonist-in-residence for comedian and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig’s radio show, and has illustrated books by Sandi and the mathematician Alex Bellos.
She is also a classically-trained pianist, keyboard and accordion player working in pop and world music. Carol has toured and recorded with artists worldwide, including Sinead O’Connor (Ireland), Indigo Girls (USA), Squeeze (UK), Phongsit Kampee (Thailand) and Ahmed Mukhtar (Iraq). She is a founder member of the London Klezmer Quartet and Hamsa, playing Jewish music from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. She is also part of the Judeo-Arabic music group Ayin who accompany The Wolf of Baghdad motion comic when it is performed live.
Carol is represented by Fiona Kenshole and Amanda Orozco.