Jewish cartoonists & infertility

This week (May 15-22) is Canadian Infertility Awareness Week. For more info, please go to the site of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada.

In honor of CIAW, I am posting information about 2 comics which have been used to tell the stories of Jewish women artists who had problems getting pregnant and sought help at fertility clinics to no avail.

In 1994, Diane Noomin, wrote and illustrated the autobiographical story "Baby Talk: A Tale of 4 Miscarriages", which was published in the anthology Twisted Sisters 2: Drawing the Line.














In 2010, Phoebe Potts wrote and illustrated the autobiographical graphic novel Good Eggs, which dealt with her marrying a Gentile artist, considering becoming a rabbi, and trying to get pregnant.

Jewish Side of TCAF 2011 - May 7th & 8th

This weekend, readers, writers, artists, publishers and fans of comix will converge at the Toronto Reference Library to take part in the the FREE Toronto Comic Arts Festival  (which this year coincides with Free Comic Book Day).

Among the talented people who will be at TCAF this year are a small number of comix professionals who have done work that has already been mentioned at the Jewish Comics Blog.

* Willow Dawson, a talented Canadian artist, who has illustrated the anthology No Girls Allowed : Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure, written by Susan Hughes and published by Kids Can Press. The anthology includes the story of Esther Brandeau, the first Jewish person to immigrate to Canada.















* Barry Deutsch, author of the Eisner-nominated Hereville which won the 2011 Sydney Taylor Award (Older Readers category)















* Sarah Glidden, author-illustrator of the autobiographical How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less!, which is nominated for the 2012 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list
















* Michael Jonathan, author-illustrator of the fictional webcomic Eros Inc. (starring Mot Fleishman) and the autobiographical webcomic Michael Jonathan is Jewish. Both of the webcomics have been collected into minicomics.

* Miriam Libicki, author-illustrator of the jobnik! series, the first volume of which has been collected in trade paperback, the illustrated essays "Towards a Hot Jew: The Israeli Soldier as Fetish Object" and "Jewish Memoir Goes Pow! Zap! Oy!" and the illustrated mini-journals Ceasefire and Fierce Ease.















* David Malki!, author of the Wondermark webcomic, which has been collected in trade paperback. Among the comics that have appeared on the site is one with the punch line "Hannukah bush", one about the Jewish New Year, one that uses the juice/Jews homonym joke and one about Hebephiles.















* Dylan Meconis, author-illustrator of the webcomic Family Man, about a Jewish academic named Luther Levy, who was unable to defend his dissertation because he was not Christian ; volume 1 may be purchased in person at TCAF or ordered online

* Jim Ottaviani, author of Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love and Fallout : J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb















* Paul Pope, author-illustrator of the story "Berlin Batman" in The Batman Chronicles #11 (reprinted in Batman : Year 100), in which Batman is a Jewish painter named Baruch Wane.















* Jonathan Rosenberg, author-illustrator of the webcomic Goats, which includes the Jewish character "Jon", as seen in the strip from Nov. 24, 2005




























* Li-Or Zaltzman, cartoonist currently working on a 100+ page coming of age story that takes place in Tel Aviv