My first encounter with Mari Andrew’s comics came on a slow Sunday night, scrolling through my Instagram feed. Amid the constant stream of high-resolution photos of mountains and toes in running water, these comics made me stop and pay attention. There was something about the soft lines on textured paper. And the more I read them, the more familiar they began to feel.
Andrew’s comics touch upon issues of sexism, media portrayals of gender, mental health, self-care, the role of the artist in society and so much more. You would think all of this is pretty heavy duty stuff. And you’d be right. But the artist manages to unpack all of these things in such an easy and (most importantly) humanised way.
A writer and illustrator and aspiring flamenco enthusiast (as she declares on her website), this New York based artist first began drawing a comic a day for a year, as a way to cope with a difficult time in her life. As with so many wonderful things, Andrew’s drawings found their way on Instagram quite by chance, with only a small following of her mom and close friends. But her style and content quickly attracted more and more people from around the world.
While there is no fixed theme to her comics – much of it coming simply from a personal space – there are a number of comics that encapsulate just what it feels like to be a woman in a patriarchal society. Andrew’s comics deal with issues like internalised misogyny, sexual objectification, male privilege and more. What’s great is that all of these are presented as snippets that could just as well have come from our own lives. It’s through this that Andrew is able to highlight so much of what women-identified folks go through. And if you count yourself among “the second sex”, chances are you’re going to find these very relatable:
To see more comics by Mari Andrew, click here! Discovered a cool artist on Instagram? Tag us using our handle @youthkiawaaz.