Well, this book looks interesting. WOMEN IN COMICS: Iconic Characters and Influential Creators from the 1890s to Today by Susan Kirtley and Nhora Lucía Serrano is a 400 page examination of, well, women in comics. It’s coming this fall from Black Dog & Leventhal and will cover women both on and behind the page.
Obviously there is a lot of history of women in comics – much of it underreported – so a hefty survey is long overdue. The logline:
WOMEN IN COMICS features fascinating deep dives into trailblazing figures like feminist icon Wonder Woman, warrior-maiden Oscar François de Jarjayes, pioneering investigative journalist Nellie Bly (whose real-life achievements inspired generations of fictional heroines), and many more women whose stories greatly expanded representation.
Inside, readers will find:
A global, cross-cultural approach to comics history that brings American comics, manga, political cartoons, and more into a shared conversation
Comprehensive explorations into the six recurring archetypes and how they have evolved across different cultures and historical moments
Profiles of creators and artists of diverse identities, cultures, and genders whose work transformed comics into a medium for critique, personal storytelling, and activism
In-depth analyses into beloved characters from Catwoman, who was considered so glamorously dangerous in the 1950s that she was effectively removed from comics for over a decade, to Señorita Rio, a groundbreaking Latinx movie star who faked her own death to secretly fight Axis agents across South America as the “Queen of the Spies.”
Kirtley and Serrano have the quite a few scholarly comics works on their Author pages. Kirtley, Professor of English and Director of Comics Studies at Portland State University, has written the Eisner-winning Lynda Barry: Girlhood Through the Looking Glass and co-edited With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics. Typical Girls: The Rhetoric of Womanhood in Comic Strips won the 2022 Charles Hatfield Prize and she also edits Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.
Serrano is a former Eisner Award judge and the Director of Academic Technology, Teaching, and Research Services at Hamilton College. She edited Immigrants and Comics: Graphic Spaces of Remembrance, Transaction, and Mimesis.
The publisher’s page includes some shots of the interior, and there will be lots of illustrations!
Back in the 80s, Maurice Horn threatened to sue Trina over that title when her first history with cat yronwode came out in 1984-5. He had a book called Women in Comics, so they called the Eclipse book Women and the Comics. Women in Comics has been out of print for a long time and Maurice is gone, so it’s probably safe now.
Back in the 80s, Maurice Horn threatened to sue Trina over that title when her first history with cat yronwode came out in 1984-5. He had a book called Women in Comics, so they called the Eclipse book Women and the Comics. Women in Comics has been out of print for a long time and Maurice is gone, so it’s probably safe now.
Comments are closed.