Graphic Novelists: Comic Book Heroes

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Death and taxes are supposed to be life's only two certainties, but Rieko Saibara has cut the list in half. The Japanese artist depicted her successful battle with tax authorities in Dekirukana: Datsuzei (Daring Tax Evasion), a book that began as a magazine cartoon column in which she recounted her real-life adventures. These included testing a homemade radiological monitor at a nuclear power plant and working at a hostess bar, where her job was to stroke the fragile egos of lonely men.

Her drawing skills, at first glance, may seem to resemble a 6-year-old's. But her work has unique twists: she often incorporates photos into her comics, lending them another layer of reality. And her tone is refreshingly caustic. Saibara's fictional characters are delinquents and outcasts, and her nonfiction characters, mostly her friends, family and herself, aren't much better. And yet Saibara's intimacy with the characters allows readers to laugh with the unsympathetic lot, not at them. "I grew up watching women get beat up by their drunken husbands, raising kids fathered by different men, never smiling a day in their lives," says Saibara, 40, whose father died of alcoholism.

Saibara attended art school in Tokyo, but she wasn't considered talented. To make ends meet, she began drawing for pornographic magazines. Publishers noticed the humorous comments she added to compensate for her lack of drawing skills; by junior year in college she had debuted as a cartoonist. After her series about losing $500,000 in illegal mah-jongg became a hit, she went on to cultivate her personal style of manga (the Japanese term for comics), which now has many imitators. Says Saibara: "People who can draw well are too proud to do anything, and many of them are still starving artists." --By Toko Sekiguchi

THE CAT'S MEOW

Bridging Cultures With Humor

Joann Sfar, much like the feline star of his most popular comic, always seems to land on his feet. The laid-back French artist, 33, regularly confronts three of the thorniest issues of the day--politics, religion and cultural conflict--but uses a deceptively light touch that results in stories that are thoughtful, charming and hands-down funny.

Sfar began drawing incessantly at the age of 3, when his mother died, using the creative outlet as a refuge, and hasn't stopped since. His greatest success is the graphic- novel series Le Chat du Rabbin (The Rabbi's Cat), which explores the life of an old rabbi and his daughter in an Algerian town that is home to both Jews and Muslims--all through the eyes of his irreverent, scrawny cat. "What I wanted to do is use humor and irony to explore the daily lives of religious folk," says Sfar, "which is a change from the rather militant antireligion sentiment in France today." An English translation is due in the U.S. in August.

Sfar's father's side is Algerian Jewish, while his mother's lineage comes from Jews in Ukraine. Sfar is a native of Nice. His stories of Sephardic and Ashkenazic differences, and Jewish-Muslim relations, have resonated with readers in France. Says Sfar: "Not long ago I gave a talk to some 17-year-old students, where most were Arab. Afterward, two girls came up to me and said, 'We adored it because we could see how Jewish families are just as screwed up as Arab families.' That made me smile." --By Grant Rosenberg