Willing and Abel

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 6, 2006 2:10PM

Some of us here in the Chicagoist office know a lot about comics and graphic novels. Some of us (ahem) don’t know quite as much. What we do know, is that we’d have to be under the biggest rock ever to have not heard of Jessica Abel, Queen of the Comics. Once you see her name for the first time, you will start to see it everywhere.

Jessica Abel is a “mostly self taught” graphic novelist from Chicago. In 1992, she started a website called “Artbabe” and it quickly became an underground hit. Most of Abel’s stories were about young hipsters, (don’t even get us started on the state of hipsters, seriously, we could be here all day), and their romantic trials and tribulations. Her new graphic novel “La Perdida”, originally published in serialized form, is about a woman in Mexico, a traveler trying to find her way, and the life of being an expat. According to Abel’s website, it is “A story about the youthful desire to live an authentic life and the consequences of trusting easy answers, La Perdida—at once grounded in the particulars of life in Mexico and resonantly universal—is a story about finding yourself by getting lost.”

We still have a lot to learn about graphic novels, comics and such, but we’re pretty sure Jessica Abel is a great place to start.

You can see Jessica Abel:
Thursday, April 6, 7:00 pm, Seminary Co-op 5757 S. University Ave.
Saturday, April 8, 1-3 pm, Comix Revolution, 606 Davis Street, Evanston, IL 60201
Saturday, April 8, 7:00 pm, Quimby’s 1854 W. North Ave.