Jessica Abel

Jessica Abel (born 1969) is an American comic book writer and artist, known as the creator of such works as Life Sucks, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, Soundtrack, La Perdida, Mirror, Window, Radio: An Illustrated Guide (with collaborator Ira Glass), and the omnibus series Artbabe.

Abel has stated that her major work is not autobiographical, and that although she is a feminist, her work is not explicitly political.

Early life

Abel was born in 1969 in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in the Chicago metropolitan area. She graduated from Evanston Township High School. She attended Carleton College for in 1987–88, and then transferred to the University of Chicago, where she published her first comics work in 1988, in the student anthology Breakdown. Additionally, she worked for three years in the administration at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She graduated with a BA degree.

Career

Abel started self-publishing the photocopied, hand-sewn and embellished' comic book Artbabe in 1992; four annual issues followed, with Abel having won a Xeric Foundation grant to self-publish and distribute issue #5. This was the first professionally printed Artbabe, and was subtitled The Four Seasons.