First woman graphic novelist

For the way-back beginning leading up to such popular works as those of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Are you my mother, look at the link below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/26/helena-bochoakova-dittrichova_n_5354241.html

I was interested in seeing Helena’s work, and since it was Saturday at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the library where they are exhibited was closed, but was kindly opened for me to get a look at this small collection, work which was done from 1929.  These are strong woodcuts, spare and disciplined, but also evocative.  It might be interesting to show students some of the origins of the “wordless book” as these are called.  And I’m interested myself in finding what the lineage might be between this woman’s work and those of other female graphic novelists.  The image below is something like Dittrichova’s work, but you will need to go to the link to see her actual work.