Manya, a comic book

December 11, 2011 10:23 AM

Manya was a short comic series, created in the ’90s, by writer Jen Benka and artist Kris Dresden. The sporadically published series covered life from the point of view of young female living in the city. A couple of those early issues are now available online:

Marie is about a meeting, of sorts, between Manya and Marie Curie, the scientist who did pioneering research on radiation.

Falling deals with the aftermath of the death of a friend from AIDS.

Jitterbug did an interview with Benka and Dresden, where they discussed the creation of Manya and other works.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (5 comments total)

Man, I really enjoyed Manya, back in the day.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:25 AM on December 11, 2011

I have Manya and Max & Lily comics.

Is this the same Jen Benka? I follow Kris Dresen online from time to time but haven't seen anything from Jen Benka in a while. Got curious with your post and searched. The author page states that she "organized public poetry events including a 24-hour reading of the complete poems of Emily Dickinson."

I found GETTING TO KNOW: JEN BENKA mentions "Current/Future Projects: Another Manya book and some poetry projects, including a marathon reading of the complete poems of Emily Dickinson"

So they might be the same Jen Benka.

Did she completely drop out of comics?
posted by bleary at 12:24 PM on December 11, 2011

OK, "Grace" on Kris Dresden's website is pretty good, even though it cost me some time that I didn't have this afternoon. Those of you who aren't familiar with this, go there and get reading! It's a treat!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:40 PM on December 11, 2011

I see from Kris's post on facebook that that Jen Benka is the same Jen Benka. Also, Dresen.
posted by bleary at 8:59 PM on December 11, 2011

also, squee.
posted by bleary at 9:00 PM on December 11, 2011 [1 favorite]