THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2026! Reviving our old Inside Look feature today as a special one-off (with an eye on reviving it properly in 2027) as Jenny Robins (Biscuits (assorted)) talks about her practice below…
I am folding a lot of photocopies of collages into interesting shapes to make an edition of the VERY handmade (hashtag AI could never, etc.) third final instalment of my series of experimental collage comics exploring the ideas of Art History and Feminism. The project started in 2022, when I got some Arts Council Funding for the idea, but making comics about identity politics was something I fell into way back in 2016, and it was never really my plan.
I grew up not really thinking about gender, because my parents were the kind of second wave feminists that thought it shouldn’t matter. My understanding of race, sexuality and class were about as basic as you’d expect from a white middle-class girl growing up in 80s/90s Mid-Sussex. I remember as a child being pretty proud of understanding that not everyone who wasn’t white, wasn’t English (to be fair, some
of my peers weren’t even there yet). And when I figured out that I was bisexual in my teens, I first angsted that it was possible I was just liberal and open-minded.
I’ve learnt a lot since those days, but that’s always going to be where I came from. Identity politics discourse allows for debate on whether or not, and when, that matters.
I also had an insatiable urge to make art, especially comics and collage, and about a million ideas for what I wanted to do with that. I think even before social media, way before we were drowning in a bombardment of visual slop like we are today, I think my work has always been responding to the over-stimulating abundance of living in the modern world. That’s why I love collage, it takes the infinite possibilities and forces them to iterate exactly once.
I’ve told this story a lot, but it was in 2016 when I was putting together a bundle of my mini-comics for One Beat Zines, that I decided to make a poster to sweeten the deal and as they were a feminist group, I made one about feminism. This poster was where my obsession with cookie-cutters began, and the characters coming out of them went on to start the project that became my First Graphic Novel prize-winning book Biscuits (Assorted).
I still can’t resist putting cookie cutters in my work, but it’s getting increasingly hard to separate the image from a toilet door sign. And who knew, in 2016, that toilet gender discourse would cause so much stupid suffering? Symbols are not static.
The stories in Biscuits were never really about what it means to be a woman, or a queer woman (because most of the characters are), they were always about what it means to be a human in London. But a part of what it means to be human this century is grappling with identity politics.
When I applied for Arts Council DYCP funding in 2022, I knew I wanted to get enough money to pay myself one day a week to research, experiment, and learn some new techniques. Was I interested in Feminism and Art History? Yes, of course. Those topics are very interesting. My graphic novel had set my reputation as someone who might have something to say about women’s issues, and I felt pretty
ignorant about the history of that. Also, my day job is an Art Teacher at a girls school, so I’m heavily invested in making sure young women feel inspired to make art. But did I also think putting that down as my topic was more likely to get me funding than if I said I wanted to make collage comics responding to the over- stimulating abundance of living in the modern world, or even just of stories I made up in my head? Yes. Yes, I did.
While the funding lasted, I made the concertina zine The Hands That Make. It’s a poetic and satisfying little object that has done very well at fairs, where people can hold it in their hands and feel the vibes. And if I say ‘That’s a collage poetry zine about feminist art history’ it tends to make a lot of people’s eyes fill with tick boxes like a cartoon character’s eyes filling with hearts. I’ve never made anything that was
such an easy sell, before or since. I don’t even know how I feel about that, guys. I guess I’m not selling those ideas as simple, and people that care know they aren’t really.
When the funding was running out, I thought I wanted to keep developing the work into a pitch for a big Feminist Art History non-fiction graphic novel. But the more I worked on it the less I wanted to actually do that. It’s an infinite topic with a lot of facts in. There have been thousands on thousands of interesting female-identifying artists, all of whom (or their estates) could potentially sue me if I didn’t get their
stories quite right. Also, although I had learnt a lot and I had a lot of ideas, the overall thrust of what I want to say about women making art basically boils down to: I am in favour of it. Which is actually not that much of a hot take.
Sure, it’s embarrassing how few people can name more than a couple of female visual artists. But it is also kind of legitimately a niche topic. I can’t name more than a couple of male formula one drivers.
The thing though, and here’s why we can’t actually pretend identity politics isn’t important, is that if I wanted to find out the names of formula one drivers, it’s been very easy for me to do so for quite a long time. It’s only now becoming easier for people to find out about people like Artemesia Gentileschi, Pauline Boty or Augusta Savage. Female artists are artists, and they are female. It ought to be up to them
how much the two identities inform each other, but it has long been and remains hard to get taken seriously as a minority in any field, unless you make your practice ABOUT identity. Identity politics, is the one thing that minorities are allowed to be experts in.
So anyway I decided to put some of my new knowledge to use and turn my pitch into a comic for the LDComics Fair in 2025 instead. This now exists in a print edition and will be coming with me to Thought Bubble et al.
Even when writing the blurb for A Woman’s (Art) Work is Never Done, I knew that I wanted to make A THIRD THING to put this project to bed. The funding has long since been spent (mostly on a new kitchen, and we don’t even live there anymore), and I knew I didn’t want to write a thesis really, although I had all the material for one. I did an MA once before and it was stressful and took ages.
From the beginning I had liked the idea of making text collage on this topic. It was my excuse to pick up plenty of old books and magazines that I would notionally cut apart and form into something esoteric yet insightful.
But that’s not actually how collage works. Collage is my favourite thing, so I should have known that. With collage you can try to steer the boat, but the tides of chance are going to take you somewhere else. Unless you cheat.
So I cheated.
I wrote half a short essay. I messed with the fonts. I printed it out, and I combined it with found text. Also I wanted it to be ridiculous, so I made those collages on diamond shapes, not quite escaping the compulsory rectangle of art production but at least rotating it 45 degrees.
Each page is folded to pop out. The final zines are as close to 100% handmade as I could get them. The pages are black and white photocopies of the original collages, and each cover is going to be wrapped in different paper – mostly magazine pages.
It’s a highly silly thing, and difficult to photograph and honestly quite difficult to handle. I love it. It’s my favourite zine I’ve ever made.
So now I have made 3 things I am telling myself I am done with making art about identity politics for a while now. I just want to make fun comics and weird collages leave me alone. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Visit Jenny Robins’s site and online store here
Article by Jenny Robins
Jenny Robins is at Table B7 in the Redshirt Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2026 runs from November 9th-15th with the convention weekend taking place on the 14th-15th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2026 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster art by Núria Tamarit
