According to Coe, her family lived directly behind a hog farm and were continually exposed to the stench from the slaughterhouse and screams from the animals.
Her influences include the works of Chaïm Soutine and José Guadalupe Posada, Käthe Kollwitz, Francisco Goya, and Rembrandt.
[7] Coe uses books and visual essays to explore various social topics including: factory farming, meat packing, apartheid, sweatshops, prison-industrial complex, AIDS, and war.
"Police State," an exhibition organized by the Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University, showcased works illustrating Coe's anti-war sentiments and critiques of international governments.
Among the works included were "Your Class Enemy (The Great Miners Strike)," "England is a Bitch," and a number of Coe's New York Times illustrations.
She often depicts harsh realities,[20][21][22] and her subjects are largely animals and humans oppressed by social and political forces beyond their control.
[19] For example, Coe and collaborator Holly Metz explore apartheid and the murder of Steve Biko in How to Commit Suicide in South Africa, a visual essay originally published by Raw Books & Graphics in 1983.
PETA progress awards named Sheep of Fools, Coe's collaboration with Judy Brody, Nonfiction Book of the Year in 2005.
Coe has been criticized by writers Cary Wolfe and Steven Baker for "audience positioning"[39] and using "stylistic sentimentality" to incite outrage and illicit specific responses from viewers.