The F Word Project: Five Feminist Fables for the Twenty-first Century is a body of art, collected in a series of feminist graphic novellas by Maureen Burdock. Each novella features a superheroine originating from a culture whose current traditions cause women hardship, despite which they emerge strong and triumphant. The F Word Project increases awareness of women’s struggles worldwide and the need for elimination of the injustices they experience. It provides inspirational role models for women by focusing on archetypes of strong women with solutions. In addition to the depiction of problems, the intelligence and goodness of human nature that make change possible are emphasized through the use of humor and engaging artwork.

The F Word Project novellas can be published individually as graphic novellas, as a series, as a boxed set, or as an anthology. Each is thirty-two pages long and presently has a format of 8.5 x 11 inches. The drawings and paintings for each novella are created as 18 x 24” oil paintings and framed panels, with the intention of being shown as fine art. The art from the first two books, which were independently published, has been exhibited in Mexico and the United States, and received numerous positive reviews.

Burdock received a Feminist Artists Under 40 Award from Judy Chicago/Through the Flower in 2008.

Selection of drawings for F Word Fable #3, "MAISA & the Bad Muslim Girls," gets a shortlist award from the Second London International Creative Competition. http://licc.us/winners/shortlist.php

Marta & the Missing deals with the periodic rape and murder of girls and women in Juarez, Mexico, over the last decade.

In this novella, Marta and Pepito, a dog with a strong sense of ethics and humor, are visited by Alma, a ghost of the disappeared, who leads them to sites where violence is about to occur. Marta learns that, by standing together, the victims and their families can end this nightmare.

Marta & the Missing opens and closes with oil portraits of some of the actual girls and women involved in the atrocities, depicted as they were before becoming victims, as seen in snapshots posted on the Internet. The intimate and upbeat portraits are meant to celebrate the women’s memories and increase awareness of the beauty and humanity being lost as a result of such violence.

The art has been exhibited in Juarez, Mexico; in Belen, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe, New Mexico; and in Chicago, Illinois.

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Mona & the Little Smile is the story of a German immigrant who comes to America, where she survives sexual molestation and incest.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, about 33 percent of girls are sexually molested before the age of eighteen in the United States.

As the novella progresses, Mona reshapes herself into a superheroine who helps other children transmute their experiences of childhood sexual abuse by honing their magical skills and turning the perpetrators into mushrooms. This novella opens and closes with oil portraits of pedophiles as mushrooms.

The art has been exhibited in Belen and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Maisa & the Bad Muslim Girls addresses oppression of Islamic women. More specifically, it focuses on “honor killing” perpetrated by Muslim male family members when they feel that a sister, daughter, or other female relative is threatening the family’s honor by being sexually independent, having relationships not approved of by father/family, or by adopting emancipated “Western” behaviors—and consequently being a bad Muslim girl. Although this type of violence against women occurs most often in Islamic countries, several cases have been documented recently in the United States.

In this novella, Maisa, the ghost of a Turkish immigrant woman, struggles to protect her daughter, whose life is threatened by her uncle and male cousins when they find out she has a Jewish boyfriend. Maisa, with help from the spirits, teaches her daughter and other Muslim women recipes from their countries of origin—Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan—with which the women can make themselves invisible to escape their oppressors. But in order to become visible again, they must find each other and share their recipes. The art draws on traditional illustrative motifs from these countries.

Fall 2010 Guest speaker, Thought Bubble Conference, Women in Comics, Leeds, UK
Fall 2010 Cairo, Egypt, Diwar bookstore, workshop for all ages, comics and graphic novels.
Fall 2010 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, workshop series for adults: “Working with O’Keeffe’s Materials: Charcoal and Pastel,” Santa Fe, NM
Summer 2010 University of New Mexico/Albuquerque, Young Writers Conference, “Ready, Set… Graphic Novels!”
Summer 2010 New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families program for teen poets (funded by Global Fund for Education), co-teaching with poet Valerie Martinez, state-wide NM
Summer 2010 National Hispanic Cultural Center, “Drawing Comics” series of classes for middle school girls, Albuquerque, NM
Spring 2010 Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, US Consulate, co-teaching with artist/illustrator Sally Blakemore, “Pop-Up Superheroes/Superheroines” workshop
Spring 2010 Ojo Encino Dine (Navajo) comics and story workshop, co-teaching with poet Valerie Martinez, Littleglobe
Spring 2010 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum program for families and teen girls, Newcomb, New Mexico
Spring 2010 United World College and veterans’ art project, sponsored by O’Keeffe Museum, minicomix workshop series, Las Vegas, NM
Spring 2010 Gear Up New Mexico (funded by US Dept. of Education) spring conference with Littleglobe artists, “Superheroes/Superheroines, ” Hyatt Resort, Bernalillo, NM
Spring 2010 National Hispanic Cultural Center, “Create Your Own Superheroine/Superhero Comic Books” workshop series for teens, sponsored by Littleglobe, Albuquerque, NM
Winter 2010 Southwestern College, guest lecturer, “F Word Project,” Santa Fe, NM
2010 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, museum education, Santa Fe, NM
Fall 2009 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, workshop for adults: “Graphic Novel Workshop: History and How-to,” Santa Fe, NM
Fall 2009 Southwestern College Counseling Center, co-facilitating with Lorena Alvarez, “Be Your Own Superheroine” art therapy pilot project, Santa Fe, NM
Summer 2009 Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, comix workshop with teen girls
2008 United World College, guest lecturer on graphic novels, Las Vegas, NM
2004 Instructor for Digital Print Production, Northern New Mexico Community College, Española, NM
2002 Adams State College, visiting artist guest lecturer, Alamosa, CO

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