Cartoon Women Talking

Girls just wanna draw funnies.

It’s a very interesting time to be a female cartoonist and not necessarily in a good way.

Not that things were a little slice of Heaven in the past. In 1982 the theme of the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award dinner and ceremony was “Women Cartoonists”. The event was held at the old Biltmore Hotel in New York City. Several women were nominated for Division Awards.

None of them won.

All of the female members were then asked to come onstage for something special. I stood between Selby Kelly and Helen Komar on a stage in the Biltmore Hotel ballroom. Cathy Guisewite and Linda Gialenella were also there. I don’t remember if Lynn Johnston attended.

Someone then came out and gave us each a banner to wear. I still have mine.

A picture was taken of us wearing the banners that I have thankfully lost. We lined up like contestants in a beauty pageant. I stared at the floor wishing that I could crash through it and keep on going. The other women bore up well under the humiliation, all the worse because it was unintentional. Some behaviours are so ingrained, people are not aware they are even doing them.

Other ‘unintentional’ things came up recently. Several newspaper chains ‘standardized’ their comic strip offerings as of March 1. Only 34 strips will run in the Gannett papers. That’s in the entire USA. Some of the strips are in reruns. Only one, Lynn Johnston’s FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, was drawn and written by a woman. Karen Evans is an uncredited writer on LUANN.

Georgia Dunn, creator of BREAKING CAT NEWS, pointed out on the Daily Cartoonist that the newspaper chains had ‘unintentionally’ dropped ‘every female cartoonist in America’ (also including Sandra Bell-Lundy of BETWEEN FRIENDS, who is Canadian.)

Dunn was interviewed by Glen Fleishman for HOW COMICS ARE MADE on March 5. She explains how her original webcomic was syndicated in papers, until it wasn’t, and discusses the Gannett 34.

On a lighter note, I was interviewed by Spencer Wright for his WALT’S OASIS podcast. The podcast ‘dropped’ this morning.

Walt’s Oasis is dedicated to discussions of animals in Disney movies. How nice is that? A few of my fantasy characters were added to the interview, since Spencer enjoys HERCULES.

Here it is. I have no idea what ‘upstream request timeout’ means. You can hear it on Spotify and a bunch of other online platforms.

This is one of my scenes from WINNIE THE POOH AND A DAY FOR EEYORE.

Here is a link to DESTINATION: CAREERS, one of the four Donald Duck ‘specials’ I worked on for Rick Reinert Productions in 1984. While the technology and fashions may be dated, the advice was sound. Anyone who followed the advice in this EPCOT film would have been employed well into the 21st century.

I woke Donald up, and am still proud of this animation.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Happy International Women’s Day. We need a special day for female cartoonists. Contrary to what one famous cartoonist once said, there were and are many of us. He apologized when he was proven wrong.

Girls just wanna draw funnies.