Category Archives: Comics Herstory

Comics Herstory: Violet Barclay

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violetbarclayViolet Barclay was yet another pioneer in the early days of comic books. She was another of the few female artists during the Golden Age of comics, and created art for many comics during the  1940s. She attended school for art, and became a staff inker for Timely Comics, Marvel’s predecessor, in 1942.

Barclay worked for Timely Comics until 1949, when she left because of tensions with other staff members. Mike Sekowsky, who had discovered Barclay, also became her benefactor despite being married. (Side note: She is one of two women I have found who was supported by a benefactor in comics, the other being Dorothy Woolfolk, DC’s first female editor.)  Barclay and Sekowsky maintained a friendship, but others on the staff thought they were involved romantically, causing friction.

It is a testament to the less-than-fair treatment that women received during this time that Barclay left Timely because of Sekowsky’s advances. Additionally, it is difficult to recreate a bibliography of her work during the 1940s, because she was rarely credited for her inks. However, according to The Who’s Who of American Comics 1928-1999 credits her with working on several animal funnies and teen humor books, including Super Rabbit, Jeanie, Nellie the Nurse, and Ziggy Pig and Super Seal.

After leaving Timely, Barclay freelanced, mostly drawing rather than inking. Her clients throughout the 1950s included D.S. Publishing, Standard, DC Comics, American Comics Group, Ace Periodicals, and St. John Publications. Most of the comics she worked on during this time were romance comics.

Barclay’s career in comics ended in the 1950s, when an economic recession reduced the amount of work available in the field. She continued to study art well after she left the field, eventually finding more work in fashion illustration. Barclay retired in the 2000s, when digital art was on the rise. She died in 2010.

Violet Barclay’s career was groundbreaking by its very nature, as there were so few women working in comics at the time. It is also indicative of a prejudice that has been in comics since the industry’s inception. Her treatment as a woman in an office job was period-typical, but not acceptable even if it was all too common. Barclay was a talented artist and will hopefully be remembered as such, despite the way she was treated by her peers.

Comics Herstory: June Tarpé Mills

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missfury_1June Mills, better known in her early days by her pen name, Tarpé Mills, was one of the first women to write action comics. She was both a writer and artist, and is credited as the first woman to create a female action hero with Marla Drake, also known as Miss Fury. Her other characters included Devil’s Dust, the Cat Man, Purple Zombie, and Daredevil Barry Finn.

Mills hid her gender by using her middle name, rightfully believing that her gender would be a significant barrier to the comic industry at the time. Only after Miss Fury gained significant popularity was it revealed that Mills was a woman.

586525The first Miss Fury strip debuted on April 6, 1941. Originally called The Black Fury, the comic ran as a Sunday strip distributed by Bell Syndicate. The main character, Marla Drake, was modeled after Mills’s appearance and began her journey as Miss Fury when she dressed in a ceremonial panther skin that belonged to an African witch doctor. Despite these racist origins of the character, the strip was more controversial for its depiction of Marla Drake. Mills, previously a fashion illustrator, paid careful attention to Drake’s outfits, often drawing her and other female characters in revealing clothing. Mills was criticized for the characters’
immodesty, and after a strip showed Drake in a bikini in 1947, thirty-seven newspapers refused to continue its publication.

Drake had no superpowers, but used her agility and the panther suit’s claws to fight crime. She had her own villains, several of which were Nazis as the comic was published during World War II. During this time, Drake’s cat, Perri-Purr, became a symbol (in unofficial capacity) of the Allied soldiers. Miss Fury herself was painted on at least three bombers during the war.

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 9.38.33 AMWhen Mills fell in poor health, other artists and writers supplemented her work until the comic’s cancellation in 1951. Miss Fury broke down another significant barrier for women in comics, however. Her characters were inspirational and unique, and Marla Drake would become the inspiration for Patsy Walker. Drake’s legacy also lived on in the other incarnations of Black Fury, some of which were men and some of which revived her character in comics published in 1991, 1994, 2008, 2013, and 2014. 

Mills died in 1988 after a long illness.

Comics Herstory: Alison Bechdel

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It’s hard to get into comics without having heard of Alison Bechdel, whether it’s because of the famed Bechdel Test, a way of determining gender bias in film, or her enormously popular and literary graphic novel, Fun Home.

tumblr_m6tgerhdc91qzds8jo1_500Bechdel was first published in WomaNews, a feminist newspaper, with a single panel comic that would provide the basis for Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF). The comic would continue to find ground and develop regularity. The strips were originally unconnected, without regular characters or plot. After time, however, Bechdel developed a series of regular characters and a continuous plot that often featured social commentary about politics and lesbian culture. The strip ran until 2008, when Bechdel decided to focus more fully on the book that would later become Are You My Mother?. DTWOF has since been collected in twelve books, including The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, which collects most strips. This comic remains an important narrative today, and was the origin of the Bechdel Test.

51c4ojju2byl-_sx331_bo1204203200_Fun Home, Bechdel’s first graphic novel, was published in 2006. It details her complex relationship with her father in a nonlinear fashion, using literary references to recreate young Alison’s experiences to the truest possible extent. Fun Home is an important example of graphic memoir, pushing the boundaries of traditional comics in an attempt to help the reader–and Bechdel herself–understand this relationship. The repetition of events and phrases and obsessive determination in telling the most truthful possible story also provides an interesting commentary on the responsibility of a memoir and the reliability of memoir.

Fun Home has been described as a “comic for people who say they don’t like comics” because the story is largely reliant on literary references as a lens for understanding the relationship between Bechdel and her father. Literature and psychology are seemingly two of the few ways Bechdel can relate to and understand her parents. Her recent book, Are You My Mother?, uses the psychology of Donald Winnicott to build an understanding of her relationships with women with a particular focus on her mother. As with Fun Home, it is dense and complex, but an interesting and important example of graphic memoir.

Recently, Fun Home was produced as a Broadway Musical and was nominated for twelve Tony Awards in 2015. It went on to win five. Bechdel drew a comic for New York Magazine reacting to the musical adaptation of Fun Home.

Comics Herstory: Afua Richardson

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1200Afua Richardson is another multi-talented comic book artist. In addition to working in the traditional mediums, she is a graphic artist and is experienced in digital art. In 2011, she was awarded the Nina Simone award for artistic achievement. She is also a voice actress, singer, songwriter, beatbox artist, and classically trained flautist.

Richardson is one of the few Native American and African American creators in the comic industry who has done work for multiple publishers, including Image, Top Cow, DC, and recently, Marvel. She has also been published under the names Lakota Sioux and Docta Foo. Richardson is a self-taught artist who credits sci-fi, Swamp Thing, X-Men, and Transmetropolitan as major influences.

She has worked with several indie publishers as well as the Big Two. Richardson worked on Mad Max: Fury Road Inspired Artists, an art book inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road and published by Vertigo. Richardson has also done cover art for several Marvel books, including Captain Marvel, Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, and X-Men: 92 to Infinity. In September of 2015, she released a zine titled The Art of Afua Richardson.

In 2007, Genius, which she worked on with Mark Bernardin and Adam Freeman, won Top Cow’s Pilot Season, meaning that the comic was then picked up and published as a limited series in 2014. The Genius release was a stark reflection of actual events in the United States at the time. The story is about Destiny Ajaye, a detective who, as a child, watched her parents die at the hands of the police, and the release coincided with the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Genius remains socially and politically relevant today, and is deeply political and complex story.

Recently, Richardson has been focusing on music. She is the lead vocalist for Waking Astronomer, a three-person band based in Atlanta, Georgia. Waking Astronomer’s EP, Waking Astronomer, was released last month.

Comics Herstory: Ann Nocenti

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1582034-490897_the_inhumans_superAnn Nocenti is a multi-talented comic book writer and editor, filmmaker, and journalist. She began her career as an assistant editor at Marvel and later began to both write and edit. Nocenti has written a number of well-known characters, including Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Woman, the Inhumans, Catwoman, and Katana, though she is most well known for her work on Daredevil and the X-Men.  

The run on Daredevil, which was published from 1986-1991, had a decidedly political flavor. The theme of the American Dream ran through much of the series, something that Nocenti looked at with a critical eye. She was nominated for an Eisner Award in 1989 for her work on Daredevil, and has said that she enjoyed writing the character because of Daredevil’s inherently contradictory nature. Her love for the character is clear in the writing and the care taken to develop Matt Murdock as someone who is a deeply conflicted and contradictory person.

tumblr_nmldin3so11qadt3bo1_1280As someone who entered the medium with little experience, she was able to push Daredevil into new situations and stories. In addition to the American Dream, Daredevil dealt with themes like the necessity of pushing oneself and taking risks. It was also a deeply political book, infused with liberal and feminist undertones. Despite following Frank Miller on Daredevil, she gave him a run for his money in terms of storytelling and theme.

Her writing has helped to create and define the canon and personalities of many characters, including the Inhumans, Typhoid Mary, Blackheart, the Uncanny X-Men, among others. She was arguably one of the first notable women to write for this era in comics, despite having no experience in writing them when she was hired.

In addition to working in comics, Nocenti has also been published as a journalist, editing for High Times, Scenario, and Stop Smiling, and writing for The Nation, Filmmaker, and Details, among others. Since 2011, Nocenti has been teaching and mentoring in filmmaking at the Indigenous Film Circle in Norway.

Comics Herstory: Rutu Modan

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519v0mgugtl-_sy344_bo1204203200_Rutu Modan is an Israeli writer perhaps best known in the comics world for her first graphic novel, She is a talented writer and illustrator, and has been working in the comic industry for over two decades. In 1995, she and Yirmi Pinkus (with whom she co-edited the Hebrew edition of MAD Magazine) founded Actus Tragicus comics. The goal of Actus was to reach a wider global audience by publishing a book per year. Since 1995, Actus has nearly accomplished its goal, producing numerous graphic novels and serialized comics. Modan has contributed to several Actus comics, and some of which were then published by Top Shelf Productions.

In the United States, Modan’s work, including Exit Wounds, The Property, Jamilti and Other Stories, and the children’s book Maya Makes a Mess, has been published by Drawn & Quarterly. The New York Times has also featured her work both digitally and in New York Times Magazine. In 2007, the NYT published a visual blog of memoirs from Modan’s life. The Murder of the Terminal Patient was a seventeen chapter story that was serialized in the New York Times Magazine.

51pxfrvyo3l-_sx342_bo1204203200_Both Exit Wounds and The Property are about human relationships, though the stories themselves are very different. Exit Wounds is about an Israeli cab driver who discovers that his estranged father has died in a train station bombing and goes searching for answers. The Property is loosely based on Modan’s own life, and tells the story of a woman and her granddaughter returning to Warsaw, Poland in search of family property they lost in World War II. Both deal explicitly with relationships that people have to one another and their past.

Modan is a gifted storyteller and artist. Her illustrations are full of clean lines and flat shapes with vibrant colors. The art itself is extremely detailed and expressive, and tells a story of its own. She is one of the first graphic novelists in Israel. As such, Modan exhibits a freedom to break traditions in terms of art and storytelling, while giving shape and direction to Israeli comics.

Comics Herstory: Dorothy Woolfolk

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sup61tale1In the 1940s, Dorothy Woolfolk’s success was another man’s Kryptonite. (Literally.) Woolfolk had an impressive resumé and became a prominent comics editor in the 1940s. She got her start at All-American Publications, which would later merge with other publishers to become DC Comics, and was the first woman to edit for DC. Woolfolk also edited books for Timely Comics, Marvel’s predecessor, and Entertainment Comics.

It’s hard to imagine Superman without Kryptonite, but Kryptonite wasn’t introduced into comics until 1949, more than ten years after Superman’s inception in 1938. Dorothy Woolfolk was responsible for Superman’s adverse reaction to Kryptonite, having found his perfection lacking. She said that he would become a more compelling character if Superman, like the rest of us, had a vulnerability. Kryptonite was introduced in Superman #61, “Superman Returns to Krypton!” when it became an important and definitive part of the Superman mythos.

Her contributions to comics were numerous, but she was also a driving force in the character of Lois Lane, and had a heavy influence in the development of her personality. Woolfolk also wrote an unknown number of Wonder Woman comics in the 1940s, which would make her the first woman to write the character (barring Elizabeth Holloway Marston, co-creator of Wonder Woman, though her contributions to the character aren’t fully known). The late Alan Kupperberg, a former artist for DC, memorialized Woolfolk in a blog post, saying that she held her own in an office that treated her disrespectfully and poked fun behind her back.

Woolfolk wrote for Orbit (a science fiction magazine) in the 1950s and returned to DC in the 1970s. There, she edited big name books like Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Young Romance, and Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane, among other superhero and romance titles. She also wrote the Donna Rockford series, a ten-book series about a teen detective, in the 1980s.

Dorothy Woolfolk died in 2000 at the age of eighty-seven, and though she isn’t a household name, her contributions to the comic industry have left a powerful impact on the personalities and makeup of the characters she worked with. She was nominated for a place in the Female Cartoonists and Comic Book Writers Hall of Fame in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, but was never inducted.

Comics Herstory: Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichová

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slide_350149_3754830_freeWordless novels first came into fashion in Germany in the early twentieth century, emerging from the Expressionist movement and often featuring political themes. Because these books were designed with mass production in mind, the illustrations were made using woodcut, wood or metal engraving, or linocut techniques. Wordless novels are largely considered an early precursor to graphic novels.

Czech artist Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichová was the first woman to employ this medium with her wordless novel, Z mého dětství (From My Childhood). She discovered the genre while studying the work of Flemmish artist Frans Masereel, who published the first wordless novel, 25 Images of a Man’s Passion, in 1918. From My Childhood was published in 1929 and rather than showing the experiences of the working class, Bochořáková-Dittrichová illustrated the sheltered life of a middle class woman. Many of her works were influenced by her own life, with themes like oppression, religion, and history.

slide_350149_3754831_freeAn exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts showed five of Bochořáková-Dittrichová’s published novels in 2014. The exhibit also included fifty-two pages from an unpublished work titled Malířka Na Cestách (The Artist on Her Journey), which seems to be largely autobiographical.

Bochořáková-Dittrichová’s contribution to this early genre, though not particularly well-known, should also not be forgotten. Women have been writing and making art about their lives since art has existed, and her wordless novels introduced this topic into a new genre. Though these topics are far from today’s superhero stories, writings and art about domesticity and middle class experience is important from a historical standpoint. Women’s domestic and social lives have long been the subject of their writings (think Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott) because that’s what women knew.

Bochořáková-Dittrichová is largely unknown, but her body of work is further proof that women are often, if not heading new movements, at least there from the early beginnings. Her work, like that of those before her, helped to pave the way for women after her. It is also a very early example of graphic memoir, a genre in which women’s narratives have flourished.

Comics Herstory: Rose O’Neill

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e18c4cb17148d57aaecb1f22f6b450d2On September 19, 1896, Rose O’Neill’s cartoon strip “The Old Subscriber Calls” appeared in Truth magazine. This was a momentous occasion, as it marked the first publication of a comic strip written by a woman.

O’Neill was a self-taught illustrator, and got her start freelancing as a teenager for periodicals. She moved to New York in hopes of better establishing her career and sold cartoons and illustrations to various magazines, including Truth, Puck, and Cosmopolitan. In 1909, O’Neill created Kewpie, a cartoon featuring cherubic characters who “teach people to be merry and kind at the same time.” Kewpie was published in Ladies’ Home Journal and gained enormous popularity almost immediately. inspiring O’Neill to illustrate paper dolls called Kewpie Kutouts, and J.D. Kestner, a German toy company, to produce ceramic Kewpie dolls.

In 1917, O’Neill began using Kewpie for political purposes. The Kewpie Korner Kewpiegram was a one-panel cartoon that usually discussed a controversial topic, such as featuring pro-women’s rights messages. O’Neill was an ardent supporter of women’s rights and focused many of her artistic efforts into promoting suffrage. Few suffrage posters remain today, though many examples of her work remain. Many of O’Neill’s posters, postcards, and cartoons were preserved and are on display in the art gallery and in the Kewpie Museum, both located at her Ozark mansion, Bonniebrook.

Rose O’Neill was a versatile artist, and, in addition to cartooning and drawing, sculpted and painted. In her later life, she taught art workshops and continued her activism in women’s rights.

O’Neill’s legacy is an important one. She laid the foundation for women in cartooning by breaking into an industry that decidedly favored men. Her cartoons were an important factor in bringing awareness to women’s rights, and she headed an era in which women would use political cartoons to their full purpose in the suffrage movement.

Comics Herstory: Jackie Ormes

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9780472116249Born in 1911, Jackie Ormes became the first African American woman cartoonist. She was born in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, and began her journalism career as a proofreader for the Pittsburgh Courier, a newspaper that at one time had the highest circulation of any African-American publication in the U.S.

Ormes’s first comic strip, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, ran from 1937-1938. The strip’s title character, Torchy Brown, was a talented singer who found success performing at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Torchy Brown would later return to publication in 1950 as an insert titled Torchy in Heartbeats.

After Ormes moved to Chicago in 1942, she wrote a column for the Chicago Defender and returned to cartooning with a single panel cartoon called Candy, which ran around the time of the end of World War II. In August of 1945, the Pittsburgh Courier began publishing another of Ormes’s single panel cartoons titled Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, with Patty-Jo’s character written as a wise, socially and politically conscious child and Ginger as her beautiful older sister.

torchy_and_heartbeats-ormes-panelPatty-Jo dolls were produced in 1947, and were the first African-American dolls to have an upscale wardrobe. Though the dolls were only produced for two years, they were one of few examples of positive representation for African-American girls. Torchy Brown also pushed back against stereotypes because she was an independent, confident, and intelligent young woman. Ormes was able to flex her fashion design skills again with Torchy Togs paper dolls, another example of a positive representation of African-American girls. Both Patty-Jo and Ginger’s personalities were written in a way that rebuffed stereotypes of black girls as uneducated and dispelled the racist tropes present in other media. Through Patty-Jo, Ormes addressed the politics of the time: civil rights and racism, the nuclear arms race and McCarthyism, poverty, and environmental issues.

Ormes retired from cartooning in 1956, but her work paved the way for many others. Torchy Brown and Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, though humorous, were undeniably political. They were also a necessary and important positive portrayal of black girls in an era when positive representation was scarce. Though Ormes passed away in 1985, she was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame posthumously in 2014, and her legacy lives on.

For more on Jackie Ormes’s life, check out Nancy Goldstein’s recently released biography, Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist, available through the University of Michigan Press here.

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