In Liana Finck’s Book of Genesis, Lilith is the Serpent, Joseph wears a merman tail and God is a woman. The New Yorker cartoonist’s latest graphic novel, “Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation,” envisages the Almighty as a work in progress. She is lonely, so She creates people. In a moment…
In many ways, the comic artist Liana Finck’s work is fearless. Finck’s style is bold in its simplicity and storytelling, and now, in her latest book, “Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir” (Random House) brave in its intimacy. The book follows Leola (a fictionalized version of the artist) as she tries to reckon with the…
Before a recent screening of “Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists” at HBO’s headquarters, director Leah Wolchok introduced her debut documentary. Standing behind a mahogany podium and wearing white thick-rimmed glasses, she spoke with a slight undertone of annoyance about how long it took to finish the film. So long, in…
In need of Jewish ancestors? Liana Finck has some for you — just cut out and display! CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Jewish women have been pushing boundaries of comics for years, but 2014 proved an especially rich year for smart, challenging work from supremely talented artists. Some confront personal history. Last year, in “Letting it Go,” Miriam Katin beautifully captured her own ambivalence about visiting Germany — and the double edge every place holds for her…
Liana Finck has been to Mmuseumm a few times. It occupies an abandoned elevator shaft in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and is beautifully lit and designed so that even everyday and garbage-grade items seem to belong to a heavenly realm. But the closer you get, the less magic they yield. SCROLL DOWN TO ENLARGE. Liana Finck is…
● A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York By Liana Finck Ecco, 128 pages, $17.99 The advice column known as “A Bintel Brief,” meaning “a bundle of letters,” was the brainchild of Abraham Cahan, the founder of the Forverts, the original Yiddish-language incarnation of this very publication. In 1906, when the paper…
In April 1907, a frazzled Forverts reader wrote in to the newspaper’s advice column, the Bintel Brief, entreating the editor “not to write which city this comes from.” Her life, she wrote, is terrible. Her husband is “truly not a mensch.” What should she do? Liana Finck reimagines this story in graphic form as part…
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NPR Legal Correspondent Nina Totenberg in conversation with Editor-in-Chief Jodi Rudoren. To benefit the Forward.
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