Delporte initially planned this work to be a biography of Tove Jansson, but as it progressed it eventually morphed into the volume we now have before us, which is more about Delporte discovering herself through Jansson's life and work than it is about Jansson herself (in this way it is somewhat like Geoff Dyer's struggle with D.H. Lawrence's life in Out of Sheer Rage).  Jansson's presence is woven throughout, and represents a role model illuminating (Jansson, fittingly, lived in a lighthouse) a path for Delporte to follow. Yet This Woman's Work is primarily a meditation on being a (young) woman (artist) today.  Delporte's painterly approach to comics, combined with her exquisite color palette, work together to craft an extended treat for the eyes.  Each turn of the page brings a new pleasure.  While Delporte articulates a clear dissatisfaction with her condition, as a woman in a world that she perceives as over(t)ly masculine, and struggles to identify and embody a feminist stance within the narrative, it is clear that she has quite successfully embodied being simultaneously a woman and an artist in This Woman's Work.

tarting out as a