We don’t often hear about graphic novels written by women. It’s not that they’ve not being made, but it’s just the usual process of whitewashing over women’s achievements by simply writing them out of history. We’ve all been there, in corporate work culture you would have heard of it as the Matilda effect.

It’s not that I have anything against Seth, or Guy Delisle, or any of the other authors we hear about. But sometimes we all like to be reflected through media. It validates our existence, it makes us feel seen. It universalizes us.

Over the last few months, I unearthed some gems by women authors – Overeasy by Mimi Pond, Make me a woman by Vanessa Davis, This woman’s work by Julie Delporte, and a number of books by Posy Simmonds.

Mimi Pond is super funny, as I heard in this podcast episode; and so is Posy Simmonds with her biting commentary on British society. Julie Delporte ingenuously talks of some universal but not often articulated concerns with the challenges of motherhood and creativity.

Here are some other popular women artists whose graphic novels I’ve been inspired by, you would know of them: Marjane Satrapi , Eleanor Davis, Lynda Barry and Rutu Modan.