Comments on: Review: Abstract Comics

By: 096 Abstract Comics! Maybe? « Wednesday's Child

096 Abstract Comics! Maybe? « Wednesday's Child — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:27:53 +0000

[…] (kudos to editor Andrei Molotiu and the Fantagraphics team), brings up an interesting argument I’ve already seen touched on, and one that I wanted to explore a little deeper here: at what point do you stop calling something […]

By: Paul DeBenedetto

Paul DeBenedetto — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:51:32 +0000

I came across your post while looking up info on AC. Excellent job. I touched on some of the same ideas, though one thing I didn’t touch on (but also noticed) was the exclusion of female cartoonists. I find it odd that this niche is completely male dominated but that might just be an issue of small sample size.

Andrei, I look forward to checking out that exhibit!

By: Andrei

Andrei — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:42:08 +0000

Thanks for your review! I just wanted to address the issue of there being no women creators in the book. Unfortunately, this is avant-garde art comics we are talking about, which is already a pretty male-dominated field, and I honestly couldn’t find any women working in this genre (I did ask around!). You are right about Satu and Nina coming to my attention too late. Actually, Satu, who is primarily a visual poet, only began making abstract comics in April, after she had discovered our blog (thus long after the book had gone into production). I only found out about Nina a couple of months ago: as she has said herself in a post on abstractcomics.blogspot.com, it was only last year that she began being interested in abstract sequential art–and, once again, she started producing much more of it after discovering our blog. If the book is successful enough to warrant a second volume, it’s a pretty safe bet that they will be featured in it–as well as, hopefully, other women creators encouraged by the book to try their hand at abstract comics.

I should add that “Silent Pictures,” the exhibition at CUNY’s James Gallery which I am co-curating and which is partly based on the anthology, will feature Nina Roos’s work, and will also feature larger (non-abstract) pieces from two of my favorite women cartoonists, Renee French (who is installing a huge, 12′ x 12′ mural) and Rachel Cattle (who is showing films based on her comics).