Interview: Sam Prentice-Jones on graphic novels, writing and witchcraft

Inspired by tarot, illustrator Sam Prentice-Jones made their writing début with the recently published graphic novel series Arcana: The Lost Heirs (2025), followed by Arcana: The Cursed Fate (2026). Following publication, Sam took some time to talk to Midlands Rainbow about his writing and illustrating process, and the intrinsic connection between witchcraft and ‘otherness’.

“Tarot is something I’ve always been super intrigued by,” Sam explains. “As an illustrator, I love symbols and image interpretation so the whole premise of taking the imagery from a tarot deck and finding ways to apply it to your own life is really interesting.

“As a writer I am always doing the MOST behind the scenes. I have whole backstories written out and character traits that barely even get touched on in these two books. I think especially for a story with some kind of mystery to it, it’s important to know exactly who your characters are, what their motivations are and where they are heading within the story or else you can really easily get lost and create glaring plot holes. That has always been a bugbear of mine.

“All of the characters are inspired by either my experiences or by the people I love. I’ve surrounded myself with an amazing and diverse group of friends from loads of different walks of life and especially as someone who grew up in a pretty suburban, white town, going to uni and then moving to the amazingly diverse city of Brighton has just opened up my world and has been one of the greatest joys of my little gay life. I feel like some of that is reflected in Eli’s journey being thrust into the world of Witchcraft.”

In the first Arcana novel, the central character of Eli finds new friends, intriguing mysteries, and even romance when the coven, Arcana, discovers his witching abilities. Witchcraft is, of course, a key element of these works, running hand in hand with the queer identities of many of the characters.

Sam explains why he believes queerness and witching are so often linked in life and literature: “I think in such trying times globally, people are really looking to something to believe in and find comfort in. So many religious belief systems are so rooted in misogyny and homophobia where witchcraft has always been championed by women and people who have been othered.”

Finding connection is another overarching theme of Sam’s work. Woven into both graphic novels, Sam Prentice-Jones explores chosen and biological families, and the potential complexities of these relationships.

He adds: “I feel lucky enough to have a wonderful and supportive family, but a lot of the people I love have really complex relationships with their families. Something that I really wanted to explore, especially in book two, was the dissonance between the desire to have a relationship with your family and realizing that to be a part of that family you would have to align yourself with beliefs that you don’t stand by.

“Family is what you make of it and finding community is the best medicine for a broken heart.”

While the Arcana series has come to an end ‘for now’, Sam is “overflowing with ideas for places I want to take these witches, there’s so many facets of their lives I want to explore!

“I am tentatively working on a third instalment of the Arcana series that is a bit more Koko centric and I’m hoping to introduce some more characters and maybe start to unravel a new mystery for the gang to solve.

“I’m unbelievably proud of the series and I would love to get to write more in this world so please go out and support your local book stores and grab yourself a couple copies!”

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