writer/artist/letterer: Miriam Libicki
2008
real gone girl studios
Soo... a friend lent this comic to me after having been to Israel herself. Pretty cool stuff huh? I believe she was given the book by someone she was visiting there, but perhaps I've mixed up what she told me (if only my brain worked properly more often). She hasn't read it yet but hopefully she does soon. Anyways... After experiencing the current Detective Comics run, I needed something fresh and intimate to wash the bad taste out of my mouth (well, that's partially due to this cold coffee, but I digress). jobnik!, upon first glance, seemed like the right place to go. I knew nothing of this book beforehand, nor anything about creator Miriam Libicki (the best way to enter a work in my humble opinion). Before opening the book however, I noticed that it came with a seal of approval by the infamous R. Crumb on the back cover. It is not surprising that he would immediately discuss the ways in which bodies are depicted (is that all he thinks about?). Thankfully he gives praise before complaining about Libicki's portrayal of the characters' figures: "[She has] an uncanny gift to draw the human body in naturalistic poses.... I wish I could do that. [But] there must be some tall skinny people in the Israeli army. They can't all be short and stocky with big eyes!" As much as I appreciate and admire Libicki's work, Crumb is not false in his critique. Libicki could use some work at experimenting with various body types so as to differentiate her characters and give them more personality through their physique. However, this did not hinder the story from excelling on various fronts.
One of the highlights of jobnik! is how Libicki thrusts the reader into her (semi?)fictionalized auto-biographical portrayal of her life, not unlike how Libicki herself (or Miriam as we come to know her in the comic) is thrown into her new job as secretary of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). In the prologue, we learn that this story will explore Libicki's sexuality, as well as her emotional well-being (or rather, not-so-well being). Libicki lets us know that this is not your average read-for-pleasure type comic; she gives the reader the heads-up about where she will be taking us, without revealing too much so as to reel in our attention with just the right mix of intrigue and curiosity.
There are several interesting page layouts that Libicki uses in each chapter that demonstrate her skill to experiment with the medium, whilst still being capable of telling an interesting story despite using unconventional designs (pages 23, 36-37, 45,67, and 73 just to name a few). Libicki is able to cover lots of ground with her layouts. For example, on p. 73, she juxtaposes two panels against one another as time lapses, with the left side zooming out of her military base to eventually reveal the sphere of the earth, while on the right side the story moves through significant events related to the present scenario (doing my best to avoid spoilers here!), slowly homing in from the past and onto our present version of Miriam. One side of the page zooms out, the other closes in; this suggests that Libicki is trying to get a bigger picture view of the conflict occurring in Israel through both a detached, objective view, as well as through a personal, intimate account of Miriam's life.
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| Libicki's gorgeous B&W pencil art. She excels at shading. |
jobnik! also performs well at capturing what it is like to be a sexually curious female living in a world of uncertainty and impermanence. This is not to say that this should be taken as a guide-line or absolute for every young girl/woman, but rather sheds light on the female perspective and just how complex that can be. [SIDE NOTE: The only other comic I can think of that I have read that also does this, and does it well I might add, is Julie Maroh's Blue is the Warmest Colour, published in English by Arsenal Pulp Press.] We learn that Miriam has had her share of ups and downs in the dating scene, more often than not falling on the latter of the two. Miriam's encounters with men suggests multiple possibilities: a) Miriam has poor taste in men; b) men are, generally speaking, (almost) entirely devoid of emotional connection and lack serious commitment skills, and seek out women (specifically Miriam, as well as some others in the book) for the sole means of alleviating their lustful desires; or c) both of the above. The only respectable men in the comic are Miriam's homosexual friend Yossi, whom Miriam obviously does not engage with sexually, and a friend introduced late in the story named Mike who ensure that she makes her bus to New York okay. Whenever sex is involved, men are portrayed as being selfish and cold. It's hard to say whether Libicki deliberately meant to convey that (most, if not) all men objectify women in her story or whether she is trying to be as accurate to her life as possible in depicting how her past lovers treated her. At any rate, it was difficult to sympathize and connect with any of the male characters in the story (besides Yossi).
On the positive side of exploring Miriam's sexual and romantic escapades, we get an in-depth view of what love means to her and how important it is to her overall happiness. Despite the unpleasant encounters Miriam faces, it is easy for the reader to empathize with her and long for her to find whatever it is that she is looking for. Unfortunately, Miriam suffers from placing such high importance on the man she is with and idealizes her relationships far too much. It's tough to say whether Miriam has grown or not in the end, as the story concludes unexpectedly, however she is at least self-aware that she lives a polyamorous lifestyle. I'm by no means poking at polyamory here, but it is obvious that Miriam longs for a committed monogamous relationship and she never seems truly happy because of this. Contradictory to that, Miriam has little self-control at stopping herself from sleeping with strange men on a regular basis, which causes her great distress and injures her self-esteem. Perhaps she is a closet-polyamorist and needs to step outside and realize just what it actually is that she wants. Or perhaps she is a monogomist willing to settle for anything until she finds her "soul mate." Whatever the case, she's got some issues to deal with (if she wants to attain the happiness that she expresses the desire to find).
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| See what I mean? Is that pencil or some sort of digital pencil gray scaling? |
Libicki's artwork is what really drew me in to jobnik! I'm a sucker for pencils and her work was a delight to ogle. It looks like there are ink washes or some form of gray scaling that was added digitally after she drew the pages out in pencil; some of the gray colouring looks pixel-y in areas, whereas in others it's much easier to see where she used pencil to shade in sections. Perhaps the scanning of the pages altered the look of her pencils and made it appear to be gray scaled. At any rate, Libicki has the chops to convey emotion and settings in B&W well and I'm eager to read more of her work (her hand-drawn lettering is impressive as well!).
Some criticisms of her art style coincides with what I quoted R. Crumb of at the beginning of this review: Libicki draws her characters too similarly to one another. During several scenes, it became difficult to tell who was who, especially when three characters in a panel all have the same facial features and body types. I found myself forgetting the names of characters and had minor difficulty telling who was who; it's distracting from the flow of the story to have to flip back to pages and try to figure out who's who. To aid this, Lubicki would have been better off using names more frequently since there is an abundance of characters who come and go in each chapter.
I'll conclude this raving with a quote from jobnik! that strikes me as a perfect summary of Miriam:
'i did think you were interesting. i thought you could draw well. but i saw very quickly that you don't respect yourself. and how can i respect a girl who doesn't respect herself?' (91)
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