The field of comics, also sometimes known as graphic novels, is dominated by male creators and readers. However, there’s been increasing push in the last few decades by women to enter the field and make their mark. Though comics drawn by women are gaining popularity, most are classified as “indie,” distributed by small publishers that may not be able to advertise or place volumes in prominent bookstores. Naomi Nowak’s most recent graphic novel, Graylight, is designated indie, though it deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience.

Sasha is a German photographer on assignment somewhere in northern Europe, where the sun stays up all night in summer. She is a mysterious person, a foreigner. She attracts the attention of a journalist, and he invites her to join him on his quest to interview a famous recluse. The woman takes a disliking to both of them and refuses to grant him an interview. But Sasha leaves with her own prize—a book stolen from the house.

Read more: http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2010/05/graylight.html

For the Feminist Review

I’m a huge fan of Tracy Chevalier. Like a lot of people, I began with Girl with a Pearl Earring, and have since made my way through all but one of her other books. So of course I leapt at the chance to sample her newest offering.

Like all her books, Remarkable Creatures begins with something tangible. In Pearl Earring it was a Vermeer painting, and The Lady and the Unicorn explained the origin of a famous medieval tapestry. This time, the inspiration is a sketch of a most unusual woman.

Mary Anning is a working class girl living on the southern coast of Britain. The people there often host tourists and sell them “curies,” curiosities, as souvenirs. Only recently have men of learning begun to study and classify these curies as fossils. Mary has “the eye” for spotting them, and she is keeping her family afloat by hunting fossils along the beach.

Read more: http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2010/03/remarkable-creatures.html

On the subway, I read all the signs. Even the Spanish ones. If you see something, say something. Si usted ve algo, diga algo. I try to infer how “algo” contributes to both phrases; that is what occupies my language-oriented brain. I puzzle out all the words on the LEARN ENGLISH NOW! Cards, fascinated by the relations between the Romance languages. I nearly miss my 14^th St stop because I am studying the map of the 123 line I all ready know.

Sex and the City’s Carrie once screamed, “I have an addiction, sir!” She meant her cigarette, a habit I think California and Bloomburg are right to condemn, but I’m not sure I have the right to feel righteous when I, too, have an addiction.

If my mother and I are out to lunch, and she goes to the bathroom, I pull out my book.

If I am nearing the end (read: within 100 pages) of a 473 page novel, I will bring another 628 page novel along as a backup. I will do this for a week and a half in which I have almost no time to read Novel A in the first place, stealing only a few pages on the bus ride home or before bed. I do not feel the extra weight.

I no longer bring magazines with me because they are too short. I finish my favorite in an hour each month. I wish they would publish more often.

My one wish is to be able to download words into my head. I want to be able to finish Gone With the Wind in the shower, and literally fall asleep reading Harry Potter against my closed eyelids. Audio books defeat the purpose, and besides, they go too slowly.

Sir, I am addicted to reading and rereading and yet again reading “Start” on my Windows toolbar, “Stop” on street signs. It is impossible not to. Even if the sign says stop, I can’t.

Richenda Gould, 19
Princeton, New Jersey