Women of Comics

She Draws Comics:
100 Years of America's Women Cartoonists
May 20 to November 6, 2006

Celebrate a century of the greatest female practitioners of comic and cartoon art that America has ever seen, from the Nell Brinkley Girl of the turn of the century to the wartime adventures of Miss Fury and Brenda Starr, to today's cutting-edge manga and graphic novels! With over fifty artists participating and over 100 artworks shown, this is the largest women cartoonists' show in history! Curated by noted scholar and artist Trina Robbins, who will appear in person at the opening.

On May 20, the exhibit "SHE DRAWS COMICS: 100 Years of America’s Women Cartoonists" opens at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in New York City. Developed in conjunction with the country’s foremost authority on the subject, writer and scholar Trina Robbins, the exhibit features over 50 artists and 100 artworks, making it the largest retrospective of women’s work in comic and cartoon art ever mounted.

SHE DRAWS COMICS celebrates the diversity of the artists and art being that has been and is currently being created by women in the comics medium. The show includes artists as varied as Nell Brinkley, a pioneering feminist cartoonist of the turn-of-the-century; Dale Messick, the famed creator of "Brenda Starr: Reporter," who wrote and drew Brenda from the 1940’s through the 1980’s; legendary women super hero artists of the 1960’s and 1970’s Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon; Robbins herself,the country’s first true female underground comic artist who helped push forth the work of other like-minded artists in the 1970’s; and the many women leading the Renaissance in graphic novels today, including Jessica Abel (Pantheon’s La Perdida), Sara Varon (Sweaterweather) and Tania del Rio (Manga-Ka).

Most of the pieces from the first half of the century come from the personal collection of Robbins, the author of such books as A Century of Women Cartoonists, The Great Women Superheroes, and Nell Brinkley and the New Woman in the Early Twentieth Century.

While promoting women cartoonists has always been important to Robbins, it is particularly important this year. Part for the impetus for her approaching MoCCA to mount this show is the exhibit of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles entitled “Masters of American Comics.” Robbins was dismayed to discover that while the Los Angeles’s museum exhibit claims to feature “fifteen of the most influential artists” in the field, none of the exhibited artists are women.

Robbins’ concern lies not in an abstract desire for “fairness,” but a need for concrete historical accuracy. “I have to ask, ‘influential’ to whom?” Robbins asks. “Certainly little girls and women, who make up 52% of the population, were not influenced by Dick Tracy, but a great many of them, including Candace Bergen, were influenced by Brenda Starr. And so many little girls used to cut out Nell Brinkley pages, color them in and paste them into their scrapbooks that it’s hard to find uncolored Brinkley pages. My point is that these women were important and influential.”

While many people may not know it, some of their favorite characters may have been created by a woman cartoonist: Grace Drayton, whose work was published in the early 1910’s, created the Campbell Kids, who were comic strip characters before they graced the sides of Campbell’s Soup cans. Rose O’Neill was the creator of the kewpies, beloved American characters who were cartoons before they were dolls. Tarpe Mills, despite her androgynous name, was the woman behind the action strip Miss Fury.

SHE DRAWS COMICS is on display at MoCCA through November 6, 2006.

WHEN: Saturday, May 20 2006 Reception starts at 7:00pm

WHERE: Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA), NYC 594 Broadway ï Suite 401 ï Between Houston & Prince

WHO: Trina Robbins and many of the artists included in the show will be on hand. A more comprehensive list will be known closer to event date.

COST: $15 non-members / $5 MoCCA members for the opening Regular MoCCA admission is suggested donation $3 / members free.

(cobbled together from MoCAA's website and press release)


Following up our Masters of American Comics spotlight, it's welcome news to hear about MoCCA's new She Draws Comics exhibit, running May 20th through November 6th at the museum. Show curator, Trina Robbins is no stranger to comics, having proven a seminal force in comics from the early formation of the Women's Comix movement during the 60's and 70's, producing the first all-women comic book anthology, It Ain't Me Babe, to her continued work in both mainstream (Wonder Woman and Barbie) and independent (Go Girl!) comics through the 90's. But, perhaps, her most impressive body of work exists in the contribution she's made on the scholarship front to the furthering of comics history in the books A Century of Women Cartoonsts, From Girls to Grrlz, The Great Women Cartoonists, and The Great Women Superheroes. She's also served in many capacities on the advancement for female rights in the comics industry as well as being a spokesperson and practitioner for the expansion of comics for female readers through such institutions as Friends of Lulu.

The Beat's Heidi MacDonald, who attended the slideshow, posts information on the exhibit at her site and has some nice things to say about it, as well. She seems to agree with Robbins' overall goals and makes some interesting points about The Masters of American Comics' noticable lack of female artists and the possible remedy that this exhibit will hopefully serve. Heidi goes on to spotlight some of the forgotten female cartoonists in a wonderful, if short lived series of posts as well as reprinting a transcript from her keynote speech at the Women of Comics Symposium.

As an aside, anyone who's interested in more female perspectives on comics and cartooning should seriously check out the following wonderful websites for the latest roundup of news, opinions, interviews, and reviews:

Girl-Wonder.org
Sequential Tart
When Fangirls Attack