Raina Telgemeier is an American cartoonist whose books include the autobiographic webcomic Smile , which was released by Scholastic Press's Graphix imprint as a full-color graphic novel in February, 2010.
Telgemeier started life May 26, 1977 in San Francisco. In her pre-teen years, Telgemeier suffered a serious mouth injury that required several years of dental and orthodontic surgery,. In addition, she was also viciously teased by her friends for this medical treatment, prompting to her to partially withdraw into her love of drawing until she lost her patience with the abuse when they publicly humiliated her. She eventually found new friends of better character in university who appreciated her artistic talent, increasing her confidence. With that encouragement, she studied illustration at New York's Colledge of Visual Arts, and currently lives in Queens, New York. She lists Jeff Smith, Lynn Johnston and Adrian Tomine among her influences. She is married to Dave Roman, who is also a cartoonist.
(Raina Telgemeier photo #2)
Telgemeier's books include a series of self-published mini-comics named Take-out, a short story in Bizarro World for Dc Comics, a short story in Volume 4 of the Flight anthologyand, four graphic novel adaptations of Ann M. Martin's The Baby-sitters Club series for Scholastic/graphix: Kristy's Great Ideathe, Truth About Stacey, Mary Anne Saves the Day and Claudia and Mean Janine.
Raina Telgemeier
