The Comic Book Diaries
As part of Yeshiva University Museum’s “Graphic Details – Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” event, I attended the October 24th “Close and Personal: Jewish Women Artists and Their Graphic Diaries” panel at the Center for Jewish History, which featured authors from the exhibition in dialogue about the confessional nature of comic book art. The panelists come from distinct backgrounds: Lauren Weinstein is the lead singer of a metaphysical rock band; Miss Lasko-Gross is creating an iPhone app about religious fundamentalism; Ariel Schrag is a lesbian screenwriter for HBO and Showtime series; and Miriam Katin is a holocaust survivor. Yet these women share a commonality: they are comic book creators with semi-autobiographical stories about coming of age as a Jewish woman.