Libicki faithfully relays wince-worthy moments of her struggle to acclimate herself among her IDF peers. There are mercilessly awkward sex scenes; Libicki experiences everyday indignities as a low-level file clerk classified by the army as "excessively emotional," and the story, while politically neutral, conveys the high price exacted by Israeli-Palestinian violence. The second issue of "Jobnik!" documents, frame by frame, the news spectacle involving a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Mohammed Aldura, whose death by gunfire as his father attempted to shield him was caught on videotape in September 2000.

"Jobnik!" grounds the reader in moral questions of war and Libicki's excruciating loneliness. At the close of the fifth issue, Libicki still had a year left of IDF service, leaving plenty of plotline for her to work her disarming guilelessness into several more issues.

-Karen Iris Tucker, The Forward

Libicki is part of this growing trend of comics and graphic novels with Jewish themes, indicative of an increasing interest in Judaism in the mainstream world and a heightened sense of confidence and maturity in Jewish artists ... Libicki's Jewish content isn't overt, but comes up naturally. The five issues of Jobnik! she has completed thus far describe only the first few months of her army ordeal. Her story is sad, sometimes mundane in a deliberate way, and always honest.

Morey Altman, The Jewish Independent

Miriam Libicki is a local Vancouver creator that does a wonderful series called Jobnik!. Her tales retell Miriam's unique experience as an American Jewish girl that joins the Israeli Army and lively hood that it entails. Miriam's work is a gorgeous heartful style that is reminiscent of Phoebe Glockner with Miriam's own unique talent.

-hear the interview with inkstuds radio show

ST: What is the major theme you're trying to explore?

ML: I don't know about "theme." It might be too early to say. I just wanted to present a story and a microcosm that is not seen very often. The Israeli army is very visible worldwide, but you never hear about the soldiers' lives or perspectives (which differ greatly, in a coed, universal draft of 18-21-year-olds, from a professional force like the U.S. and Canada's). I also think that I benefit from an outsider's perspective on Israel, when doing my army service (especially such a mundane, unskilled, non-combat job) was such a bizarre and jarring experience, rather than just the thing you do between high school and adulthood.

read the interview with sequential tart online

What a combination of concepts! My mind began to race with speculation and questions. Was she trained to properly defend herself if The Worst should happen? Did she know people who died or lost friends or family in combat? How did it feel to be on the sidelines while other folks were put at "real" risk? What kind of real risk did she face herself? After all, I've heard all kinds of horror stories about suicide bombers and such attacking Israel - you don't have to be a combat soldier to deal with danger in Israel, right? What was it like to be an American in Israel? What inspired her to volunteer in the first place, when living in America is so much safer?

[...] as befits the material, the book is sometimes ambiguous and versatile; parts of it are funny, parts of it are about conflicting feelings of acceptance (stranger in a strange land, getting in touch with her roots?), parts of it are about being afraid... there are some slippery relationships and a subtext of self-doubt and unease.

In short, it's autobiographical comics and many of the things that suggests, with such a unique spin that I can't wait for more... and to see how everything turns out.

-Sean Maher, Quality Control, on jobnik!.

It wasn’t at all what I expected, subtle little things that you need to look over several times because you’re not sure whether you’re seeing what you thought you saw the first time around, an interesting character study where the writer is the character she’s studying. Miriam puts it all out there, I give it up to her – readers of this site know that I’m a fan of honesty and reflection. I learned a lot about myself by doing this site – you kind of see a sense of self realization within Miriam as you turn the pages of her book.

-Jason Rodriguez, The Moose in the Closet. on jobnik!.