Debbie Fong

Debbie Fong is an illustrator, designer, and cartoonist from Brooklyn, NY, and currently the (sole) artist behind POMMO Press, where she turns her best doodles into fun products like enamel pins and embroidered patches. After attending her first indie comics festival in 2015, she fell in love with the world of small press comics and has been drawing and printing her own books ever since, exhibiting regularly at comic festivals around the country.

As an illustrator, she enjoys both commercial work as well as longer narrative projects. Past clients include Time Inc. Books, The Strand, and CreativeFeed. Her latest illustrated children’s book is titled How To Be a Person, written by Catherine Newman and published by Storey Publishing (May 2020).

Favorite food:

Noodles! 🙂 I love all types of noodles from Italian pastas to Asian egg noodles, rice noodles, and even noodles made from beans! Growing up as a Taiwanese-American kid in Northern New Jersey, I think I got to eat the best of both worlds – noodle soups with vermicelli and fried shallots at home, and spaghetti and meatballs whenever we went out.

Favorite travel spots:

One of my new favorite things is to go on road trips! In 2018 my partner and I took our first cross-country road trip from New York to California with our dog and it was an unforgettable trip. Since then we’ve done a bunch of smaller road trips, but I can’t wait until our next big trip to the West Coast!

Awards and honors:

Ignatz Award nomination, 2018
Broken Frontier Award, 2018
Publishers Weekly Starred Review 2023 – Next Stop
Kirkus Starred Review 2023 – Next Stop
Bulletin Starred Review 2024 – Next Stop
Kirkus Starred Review 2024 – Banned Together
Kids’ Indie Next List March/April 2024 – Next Stop
Book Page’s Best Books of 2024 – Next Stop
NYPL Best Books of 2024 – Next Stop
Publishers Weekly Starred Review 2025 – Banned Together

Specialties:

Advertising, Animals, Black & white, Board books, Book Covers, Branding, Coloring, Editorial, Fantasy, Graphic novel interior art, Humor, Illustration, Indie comics, Inking, Middle Grade, Non-fiction, Packaging, Picture books, Sci-fi, Slice-of-life, Spot art, Typography, Writing, Young Adult

Forthcoming books:

The Faraway Forest Book 2 (Chronicle Books, Fall 2026)
Stone Lion (Penguin Random House, Fall 2027)
The Faraway Forest Book 3 (Chronicle Books, Spring 2028)

Published books:

How To Be a Person (Storey Publishing, 2020)
What Can I Say? (Storey Publishing, 2022)
Next Stop (Random House Graphic, 2024)
Banned Together (Trustbridge/Holiday House, 2025)
The Faraway Forest: Wally’s Route (Chronicle Books, 2025)

Location:

Brooklyn, New York

Mediums:

digital

Art Process:

My illustration work is 95% digital, which means there is a lot of fluidity to my workflow that I find helpful when working with clients or other artists on a project. For example, changes to “inked” lineart are not too difficult to make at any stage, and when requested, I can deliver Photoshop files formatted so individual colors can be easily changed. In terms of my approach to a new assignment, I find that establishing clear communication from the beginning can really help to get everyone on the same page, so I always try to be as thorough and communicative as possible!