Everyone's Kvelling for "Kissing Jessica Stein"

Andrew Johnston

Making Matzah
Mainstream

"Jewish mothers
the world
over will be
grateful for
Tovah feldshuh,"

Passover becomes food for thought
in "Edge City" newspaper comic strip.

ALEXANDRA J. WALL

Owen Gleiberman

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considered all my characters to be
Jewish," said the cartoonist, who
grew up in Southfield and
Bloomfield Hills and got his religious
education at Temple Beth El, where
he had his bar mitzvah. He began his
career in 1986 and honed his skills
working in editorial and magazine
cartooning as well as comic books
prior to the debut of Edge City.
When Christmas was approaching,

Jewish Bulletin of Northern California

A

bby searches the Internet
in search of ideas on how
to make the seder more
meaningful. "Which one is
the shortest?" asks her husband, Len,
as Abby's father chimes in that he
prefers the "traditional" seder, the
one in which they skip half the cere-
mony and eat.
Abby and Len
Ardin are not real
people — they're
characters in a comic
strip called Edge City,
which is syndicated
by King Features
Syndicate and runs in
33 newspapers
nationwide, includ-
ing the Detroit Free
Press.
Since Monday, the
Ardin family has
been discussing and
celebrating Passover
in a planned two-
week story line. As
far as its creators
The LaBizn family: Cartoonist Terry LaBan, le , draws
know, this is the first
"Edge City" with creative help from his wife, Patty, right,
time a comic-strip
a
social worker "I'm very sentimental about the Detroit
family will sit down
Jewish
News," says Terry a graduate of Lahser High
around the seder
School
and the University of Michigan. "/ used to do
table.
caricatures
at parties and took out ads in the paper
Created by
to let people know. That brought me a lot of work."
Chicago-based car-
toonist-illustrator
Terry LaBan, a
Detroit native, with
creative input from
the LaBans didn't know how to han-
his wife, Patty, a social worker, Edge
dle the holiday. "It's really hard to
City began running in January 2001
ignore Christmas," said LaBan, who
With its dual-career, two-child cou-
creates each strip a month before
ple, it is meant to be a satire on the
publication. "If you're going to be
modern busy family.
doing a strip about modern
And although Len has dark curly
American families, Christmas is a
hair, a mustache, goatee and glasses,
huge thing."
Terry LaBan, son of Myron and
b..
LaBan said he•and his wife, both
Joyce LaBan of Bloomfield Hills,
University of Michigan graduates,
didn't consciously set out to create a
mulled over several options for the
Jewish character.
Ardins. In the end, the family hinted
But at the same time, "I've always

•