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.

Each issue of Artbabe contained one or more complete stories; Abel did not begin any longer sequential work until La Perdida in 2000.

For LA Weekly in 2000 and 2001, she did a number of comics journalism pieces on such topics as the 2000 Democratic National Convention and evacuating from Lower Manhattan after the September 11 attacks.

[7][8] The central character is a Mexican-American woman, Carla, raised by her Anglo mother, who moves on a whim to Mexico City to search for her identity.

[9] Abel and Madden then both moved to France for a one-year artists’ residency at La Maison des Auteurs in Angoulême[10] in 2012, that became an extended four-year stay.

[11] On June 7, 2016 Abel announced that she was returning to the United States to accept a position as chair of the brand-new illustration department at PAFA, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

[12][13] Abel's one-person exhibitions include "Corridoio Altervox" in Rome, the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton; the Oporto International Comics Festival in Portugal, Viñetas desde o Atlántico in A Coruna, Spain, and the Naples Comicon.

Abel at Delcourt Festival in Paris, France in 2006