20 comics that can change your LIFE -NR.7

Diary of a Teenage Girl comics by Phoebe Gloeckner
When fictional teenage girls have sex, it's usually because they're trying to manipulate someone, or are desperate for love and validation. When actual teenage girls have sex, it's usually more complicated. For Minnie, the narrator of Diary of a Teenage Girl, sex is not a means to an end; it's an important aspect of her life, as is the pleasure, power and fear that accompany it. Gloeckner's book, based on her own adolescent writing, inverts all expectations of a teenage diary: instead of angsty poetry, initialed crushes and doodles of hearts, we get frank prose, graphic sex scenes and graphic-novel versions of Minnie's memories. Gloeckner's technical skill as an artist is unsurpassed (she has a background in medical illustration), but her unflinching illustrations of Minnie's most private, awkward moments are more than skillful; they're storytelling at its bravest. Read the Nerve interview with Phoebe Gloeckner