As a female cartoonist who intends to have children some day I found this panel by Ariel Bordeaux (Raisin Pie comic) a little disheartening. Everyone needs maternity/ paternity time but ‘I’ll get back to comics eventually…’ just seems so non-commital. A professor at uni told us that women can never have a successful career, relationship and family, they will always fail at at least one. I couldn’t believe how many women on my course accepted this. Why the hell not, I say! In fact, why can’t I have a relationship, children and TWO careers, comics and academia? Talk about defeatist. Interesting point: apparently Peter Bagge’s success is at least partly credited to the fact that in the early days his wife went out to work whilst he was a stay at home dad with more time to work on comics. What kind of adds insult to injury here is that at the back of Raisin Pie Ariel has another strip about how great it is to be a housewife with nothing to do all day! So come on, Ariel, your comics are lovely, I’m sure its not too difficult to raise a child and do some drawing at the same time!