 Please help me welcome Trina Robbins Hopefully most of you know that what we're talking about here is a history of women who drew comics from 1896 to 2013 and What I've done since obviously I can't include the entire book I've just put in the very most interesting and the ones you may not know of well I bet there's a lot you don't know about this This is Rose O'Neill the old subscriber calls. It's from Truth magazine 1896 and as far as I know and as far as anyone knows this is the first comic by a woman at least in America Rose O'Neill by the way if you can I don't know if you can read it, but it's actually funny I mean sometimes you know the you know really really old humor is sometimes kind of strange and doesn't make sense But this is funny. Can you read it? Okay, I'll tell you what happens the Kai comes into the office and he says Are you the gent that wrote about me in the paper and he says yes And he says well I got something to tell you and he beats him up as you could see then he marches out and The secretary all this while who's been terrified runs over to the boss and says gee for a minute I was scared he was gonna gonna Drop his subscription Rose O'Neill is most famous for being the creator of the Cupid's and this is This is an announcement from Good Housekeeping magazine in about 1906 Saying that the Cupid's were coming they were going to be appearing in Good House Housekeeping magazine. They also appeared in the ladies home journal and later in the form of comics and newspapers And of course everybody has seen Cupid dolls Okay This beautiful woman standing up with the world's tiniest waistline is Grace Drayton if Rose O'Neill could be considered the the First woman to draw comics Grace Drayton was not far behind I believe this is from 1903 She drew a series of cute little kids with names like toodles and and Suddenly I can't think of all the names Billy and Betty bump names like that they all look the same They were all these cute little kids now. Do these does this cute little kid look familiar to you? Yes That's from 1945 Grace Drayton created the Campbell kids in about 1906 and Campbell soup actually originally wanted her to sign a contract Saying she would not draw those cute kids for anyone else, but that was impossible Because that was what she drew she drew those cute kids and this this is Kate Karoo Again all of these women are from the very early 20th century Kate Karoo Was a caricaturist and a journalist what she would do is This is the bottom part of an entire page She would interview famous people and then at the bottom she would do this cute little strip You know about her adventures with these people she interviewed and that's her in the big hat She always drew herself as as very big-eyed and innocent and she's meeting count Tolstoy She's she interviewed everyone she interviewed the Wright brothers she interviewed Mark Twain Picasso She interviewed Picasso in 1909 when he said he was dead set against women having the vote this is she also did caricatures of Actors and actresses in the theater and again you see how she draws herself Kate Karoo who drew herself as this this cute little big-eyed innocent was far from innocent She was very bohemian. She traveled all over Europe. She was married several times and She lived in Carmel back when it was a real artist's colony She also drew this Strange and wonderful comic called the angel child now around this early 20th century It was it was very popular to draw comics comics with cute little kids were very popular You've probably already noticed that by men and women not just by women, but Kate Karoo's angel child is really a horror I mean if you can tell she's a dreadful child And that wretched little dog is also in every strip Okay, this is little Reggie and the heavenly twins and the artist is Marjorie organ still I think not even the tens yet, you know the single digits of the 20th century Marjorie organ along with drawing this strip. These were newspaper strips by the way comic books had not been invented yet Okay along with drawing this trip Marjorie organ is a very interesting person because She actually caused a scandal when she married the painter Robert Henri Who was twice her age? but This is Marjorie organ painted by Robert Henri and It's at the de Young Museum. It's just called miss. Oh But you see now when you go to it, you will know something that no one else knows that is Marjorie organ and she drew comics And this is Faye King Also came in the to New York from Colorado in the early 20th century Hurst sent for her Hurst had talent scouts all over the country finding talent and so he sent for her She I think it was 1912 when she arrived and the story goes that Everyone was ignoring her. She was like I'm here. Hello and everybody was just busy doing something else And she finally asked someone why isn't anyone paying attention to me? This is my first day and they said haven't you heard the titanic sank This is the strips that she did she had commentary on the bottom And she drew the women very in a kind of a cartoony realistic style, but when she drew herself She drew herself looking like olive oil all tall and skinny and funny This is Ethel Hayes In 1918 teaching art to wounded veterans of the first world war We're moving on to another period because you know comics have styles and the styles change The new period these from the 20s through the early 30s that women were drawing were flappers Um the flapper was the new woman really of the 20th century. She smoked. She drank. She could vote She threw away her corsets. She wore short skirts and Ethel Hayes memorialized them in her comics This is a strip. She did called flapper fanny Ethel Hayes was so prolific. She didn't just draw comics or this daily strip. She drew Illustrated kids books. She drew paper dolls. She did everything So really she was overworked. She had taken on more than she could handle So she passed this is like sisterhood. She passed the flapper fanny cartoon on to another woman This is flapper fanny by sylvia snideman. It's a little later. It's the 30s now Okay sylvia snideman passed the car the flapper fanny on to yet another woman who changed it quite drastically while keeping the main character You can see now. It's in full color comic form rather than just a strip It this is by now. This is the late 30s. Well, maybe yeah, I think it's the late 30s and the artist is gladis parker Now what's interesting about gladis parker is she had two careers She didn't just draw flapper fanny. Oh, and by the way, okay, so this is like the late 30s. All right by 1940 Really by 1938 39 flappers were passé Right, there were no more flappers. So but she wanted to of course continue drawing her character So she changed the name To mobsi. This is from 1948 or 1950, but it's the same character. You can see Just minor changes in the hairstyle, but really the same character. The interesting thing About gladis parker is she looked like the character And this is what I was about to tell you before she had two careers There she is looking just like mobsi in about 1939 And she also was a dress designer a very famous and successful dress designer This is from look magazine 1939 and look, I love she's wearing something that she designed Look at the little heart-shaped pocket with a hankie coming out of it. She's wearing her heart on her sleeve This wonderful woman who looks exactly she's looks like the quintessential flapper is virginia huge And she's there with her husband. Uh, she was another one of the flapper cartoonists There were a lot of women drawing flapper comics in the 20s This is what she drew. She drew many many strips. This is really only one of them and they were serialized They were ran in the sunday papers, which is why they're so big and such beautiful color and they were serialized And she also did ads a lot of these women also did commercial work. This is an ad for lux soap This is edwina dum in her studio And you know something tells me she didn't really wear white and white shoes Because look at all that black ink. I think she just dressed up for the photographer Edwina was a little different from all the other women Because there they were all drawing flappers and before that cute kids Edwina drew dogs. She was the quintessential dog artist. Her full name was edwina dum But she just signed everything edwina And here you are there's tippy now the strip is about a little boy and his grandmother and the little dog But tippy was the real star and tippy was immensely successful To the point where there was sheet music Look at that tippy's love song. I have about four different pieces of tippy sheet music And there she is with her own little dog Edwina owned a whole series of little dogs little fluffy white dogs that all looked like tippy She also drew drew dogs not just for comics. This is an illustration from a book called verdun bell It's short stories about uh world war one famous dogs of world war one and she illustrated that She was just the dog artist This glamorous woman is dale messick Dale messick was born dahlia messick She likes to tell a story. She died in 2006 But she used to like to tell a story about how she had to change her name Because they wouldn't accept her strips when it was signed dahlia Because they knew she was a woman so she had to change her name to dale before she could sell a strip This isn't she had a nice story, but it isn't quite true Yeah, there you are it says dale messick. These are her unpublished strips They were unsold. They these were her rejected strips before she did The the one that sold um, and you can see she's already really really good And that her work is already signed dale messick So the name change had nothing to do with it. They were still rejected um I think it's because you look at her art and you say this is a woman And that there were editors who were extremely Misogynist and just because they could tell from looking at her art It didn't matter. She could have signed her work edwin messick and they would have still known This is what she finally sold brenda star and I think a lot of you might be familiar with brenda star It lasted a long time This is one of the earliest strips. It started in 1940 Ah, okay, uh, we're at the war now. The war has just started. It's the 40s and comic books by the way are being published now You know those early ones that I showed you were all from newspapers But comic books came around the early 30s and just really got big by the end of the 30s So it's war time and all the young men most of the young men who were drawing comics working for the comic books Went off to fight the war. They either enlisted or they were drafted and for the first time Not in newspaper strips, but in comic books for the first time Women stepped in to take their place and were drawing comics And what the women drew this is very interesting Because it was war time and women were really they were becoming real action heroines. They were working in the factories They were building the planes. They were flying the planes So what they drew were strong beautiful competent action heroines I won't call them super heroines because they don't have superpower And they're not wearing funny costumes They're wearing kind of glamorized uniforms. Um, this is by Jill Elgin Girl commandos. It's really, you know, when you think of the politics of those days It was quite amazing. This is These women this group of women who fight the nazis each one of them is from a different country from a different country That's been invaded by the nazis And you see mobs. He's gotten into the act. She's joined the wax She also drew this trip flying Jenny, which was about an aviatrix It's um, it's credited to Russell Keaton who actually had drawn it But he was now off in the military and so she took it over And she's still designing clothes. This is for a magazine war time magazine Closed to where to your bomb shelter what the well bombed woman will wear This is Ruth Atkinson. I still were a war two This is what she was drawing Plains Not, you know, I mean here were all these women drawing these strong wonderful fighting women and she went one better She's drawing the planes that they flew Jungle girls all of these these were the different kinds of of wonderful strong Beautiful women that these women were drawing the artist is Marcia Snyder Camilla is the jungle queen Here's glory Forbes. She's a girl detective and the artist is Fran Hopper Ah, this is Lily Renee Maybe my my favorite Just not just cartoonist, but favorite person who is a cartoonist She's sitting at her desk at fiction house comics where she worked Lily Started out as a Jewish teenager in vienna In 1938 when the nazis marched in she escaped in 1939 escaped to england via something called kinder transport Uh, do you know about it? I think most people know. Yeah, good. Okay. Meanwhile Her parents of course she had to leave them behind And then england declared war on germany and she lost all touch with her parents didn't know if they were dead or alive There's a happy ending They had escaped to america and of course they didn't know where she was but they finally found her and she wound up in new york Okay, there they were they had been very well off In vienna, but of course they had lost everything So they were living hand to mouth with other refugees When her mother saw an ad in the paper that said a company called fiction house comics was looking for artists And remember what I told you all the men had gone off to the war Um, lily had never drawn a comic in her life, but she went to the newsstand. She was an artist She went to the newsstand bought a couple of comics drew a couple of sample panels went to fiction house comics and got the job Um, this is drawn by excuse me drawn by lily rene. It's jane martin She is a flying nurse who fights the nazis This is the first and at this point, I believe possibly the only Native american woman cartoonist her name is eva mirabal She was a whack during the war And she drew a strip for the whack newspaper called g. I. Gertie And you see it says by pfc eva mirabal When she when she was finally mustered out it was signed by sergeant eva mirabal She was also after the war and even during the war. She was a poster artist and later became a muralist This is a a war bonds poster. She drew Okay, the war ended the boys came back the women lost their jobs the boys wanted their jobs back and here's mobsi again Echoing the times She says she wants to lose the muscles. She got on her war job It was the women were sent Literally back to the kitchen And this is ruth adkinson who drew airplanes and now she's in the kitchen married that's her husband And they weren't it wasn't like they didn't get pink slips because they were all freelancers. They simply weren't hired anymore This is hilda terry Okay, this is all right. You had the flappers earlier than that. You had the cute little roly poly kids Teenagers emerged in the 40s Teenage comics about teenagers hilda terry drew a comic called tina At that time in 1949 The very prestigious cartoonist society named the national cartoonist society the ncs Did not allow women to be members. It was all men and the excuse they used they said that if women are in the room They can't curse so hilda terry fought that she did one of the most important things that women Have ever done for comics. She fought that And her husband Gregory d'alessio who was a new yorker and saturday evening post cartoonist he He introduced her name as a possible member And she was black bald But because she was a woman But a lot of the artists a lot of the members of the ncs were on her side And there was a a real battle over this for about a year until the next time she was elected into the ncs and immediately Put up the names of her female cartoonist friends like lattice parker and so she broke the ceiling She broke the ceiling Okay teen comics. I just showed you tina. What happened was the women were still given work They were no longer what happened was the end of the beautiful action heroine They were no more action heroines for these women to draw times had changed But they were still drawing teenagers for a brief while And this is remember virginia huge and her flabber cartoons. This is virginia huge Now she's drawing teen strips and she's also changed. She's gone back to her maiden name virginia clark patsy walker drawn by ruth adkinson who later went back to the kitchen Also drawn by fran hopper. They'd all because they couldn't get work anymore drawing action heroines there. They were all drawing teen comics Kitty by lily renae Ah This is an illustration from little women. You probably recognize it. It's drawn by jill elgin Jill elgin who drew the girl commandos that beautiful united nation of fighting women The only work she can get now is illustrating for children's books. I have nothing against little women I love it. I cry when beth dies But i mean think of it think of what she had drawn and now what she could do to make money Love comics that was the other thing that women could do because it was romance This is ruth adkinson. You can see that it's signed And this is virginia clark again who had been virginia huge. Now she's doing love comics By 1974 Elizabeth ruby was the last woman to draw for dc's romance comics the last love comic published by dc Folded in 1974 and there were no more love comics And there were no more women drawing comics for the the major comic book companies. Actually, there were two This is marie severin for marvel And this is remona frayden for dc And these two women were the only two women drawing comics And the reason really is to me pretty obvious they could actually draw superheroes even though that's funny You know, they could draw superheroes most women are not interested in drawing or reading about overly muscled guys punching each other out and marie severin and remona frayden didn't even meet until the 1980s because they worked for two different companies So, you know, what's a girl to do if she wants to draw comics? And there's nothing out there for for women or bi women This is what a girl's to do. This was 1970 the days of women's liberation the first the second second feminist wave I think they called it This is the very first All-woman comic book and I produced it in 1970 There was a newspaper the very first women's liberation newspaper in america called it ain't me babe And I was on the staff and because I had their moral support behind me I was brave enough to put together this comic because at that point the underground was totally a boys club Then I was not welcome into their boys club two years later 1972 10 women met in a house in san francisco and came up with the longest ongoing Women's anthology comic and this is the cover of the first one The artist is patty patty moody in and she's the woman who got us all together at her house So she got to do the first cover And you can see that we're dealing with things That men don't deal with you know, we're not drawing the same stuff the men do This is by lee morris and you can you know, you can see what it says men didn't do covers like that Uh, here's another one. This is by rebecca wilson, you know, and I love this is one of my favorites I mean, you know, there's this evil scientist turning these captive women into into mindless playboy bunnies But he's about to be you know, he this wonderful woman here is about to rescue them And this is another one of my favorites. It's by sherry flanagan Betsy ross who had hoped to lead the battle the troops up bunker hill Unfortunately has to stay home and make the flag and george washington is saying can you have it ready by next week? And this is a cover that I did in 1982 For women's comics and I think it's kind of funny, you know, because it's like the 21st century woman Look at the size of the computer. She's holding computer cassette briefcase Um, okay, this is very interesting women's comics was actually not the first ongoing women's comic anthology They were beat we were beat By two weeks on the newsstand by two women joist farmer and lynn chevley who their reaction to the incredible Misogyny that they saw in men's underground comics was to do their own Comic that dealt with sex from a woman's viewpoint as you can see and that's why the outrageous named hits and clits I mean they were there to outrage And they did what's funny is that We were in san francisco and joist and lynn putting out hits and clits were in southern california And we didn't even know about each other yet within a space of two weeks Our first comics came out and of course by the way we all became friends Once we once we knew each other But you know, is there something in the air in california? Is it the water? Which by the way we need more of But it all happened in california And this is by mary wings. It's the first Lesbian underground comic it came out in 1974 And at the same time, this is dynamite damsels Also the first lesbian comic they both came out around the same time So it would be hard to tell which came first. This is by reberda greggory And this is the last issue of women's comics 1992 That cover is karin lesion who's a really good writer. She was also the editor and she wrote an editorial that basically said This you know this this book Will turn yellow it's made of cheap newsprint. It'll turn yellow in in six months You won't be able to find it in comic book stores Because they'll have ordered two copies and sold out and they won't reorder and if you ask them why they'll say Oh, but women don't read comics and she ended it by saying bullshit How did it sell out to start with and that is what happened? Women's comics ended because at this point the only place you could get The comics was in comic book stores and the comic book stores were strictly superheroes And if you walked in if a woman walked in or a girl what she saw was wall to wall 12 year old to 21 year old boys Standing around reading comics and the place usually smelled like old gym socks So she didn't go any further So they could actually say editors and and comic bookstore managers could say Girls don't read comics, but obviously as we know now You give a girl a comic she likes to read and she'll read it because all you have to do Is go to up Down upstairs is go upstairs and go to the graphic novel section and you will see So many graphic novels by women and so many graphic novels that girls like to read You'll see teenage girls. They are Reading the the books taking them out But i'm i'm not going to get into that because all you'd have to do is go upstairs and you'll find out for yourself This is all a history so women's comics this was an uh exhibit we had in 1974 i believe Maybe 75 there we all are that's our publisher ron turner in the back The only one who isn't a woman. That's me peering peering out Between the two women so right here in this library in 2012 It was the 40th anniversary of women's comics and we had a big exhibit right here in this library And we had a reunion and here we are at the library with our exhibit and the man who looks like santa claus is ron turner We've all changed except that i'm still peering out between two women I don't know why that always happens and and this is this is it and I really thank you very much