Wednesday, March 01, 2006

The Mad Women still in that Attic.

I was thinking about the untimely death of Linda Smith and it struck me that if any male comedian had died in her place, no matter how mediocre his comedic talents, he would have merited more air time and more newsprint. I suppose we've come a long way since women authors pretended to be men, but it seems that some other professions, despite the odd token woman-in-charge, are way behind the times.

In cartooning, women play a huge role, but seldom turned up at the old Punch lunches, or even feature much in cartooning award ceremonies (with one or two notable exceptions). Britain's well-published female cartoonists have been particularly anonimous on the web, whilst males with little-or-no cartooning experience proudly proclaim themselves to be 'cartoonists' and are openly touting their 'work'. So, what I thought I'd do is point you at one or two cartoonists, mainly from the US and Canada, who are on the web as well as in print:


I'll search for links, if any are missing, I'll drop them in later. Drop me a line if you think you should be on my list (poor memory).

David suggested Carolita Johnson as an addition to my list. I popped along to her website and laughed out loud at her solution for bird flu. After seeing another bird cartoon, 'not puffy enough for you?', I'm now a big fan. Thanks for the heads up, David.

Carolita Johnson
Benita Epstein (one of my favourite cartoonists, male or female)
Stephanie Piro
Sandra Bell-Lundy
Kim Warp
Aline Kominsky-Crumb
Patricia Storms
Jessica Abel (Artbabe)
Raina Telgemeier
Hope Larson
Lynda Barry
Megan Kelso
Christine Tripp
Patricia Kadel
Elena Steier
Jenny Gonzalez
Lorna Miller

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