The Inking Woman: 250 Years of British Women Cartoon and Comic Artists

(Hardback)

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Description

This groundbreaking picture-led celebration of the work of over 100 named British artists, and a few more anonymous ones, reveals a wealth of womens wit and insight spanning 250 years.

Based on an exhibition of the same name, held at the Cartoon Museum in 2017, this book edited by Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate demonstrates that women have always had a wicked sense of humour and a perceptive view of the world.

For many years, the world of cartoons and comics was seen as a male preserve. The reality is that women have been drawing and publishing cartoons for longer than most people realise. In the early 1760s, Mary Darly illustrated, wrote and published the first book on caricature drawing published in England, A Book of Caricaturas. In the nineteenth century, Britains first comic character, Ally Sloper, was developed by the actress and cartoonist Marie Duval (18471890). Cartoons were used by the suffragettes, and, during the Great War, artists such as Flora White and Agnes Richardson produced light-hearted propaganda comic postcards.

From the 1920s, a few women cartoonists began to appear regularly in newspapers. The practise was for artists to sign with their surname, so most readers were unaware of the cartoonists gender. In 1920, Mary Tourtel created Rupert Bear for the Daily Express, and nearly a hundred years later her character is still going strong. From the 1960s, feminism inspired cartoonists to question the roles assigned to them and address subjects such as patriarchy, equal rights, sexuality and child-rearing, previously unseen in cartoons. Over the last thirty years, women have come increasingly to the fore in comics, zines and particularly graphic novels.

This wide-ranging curation of womens comics work includes prints, caricatures, joke, editorial and strip cartoons, postcards, comics, zines, graphic novels and digital comics, covering all genres and topics. It addresses the inclusion of art by women of underrepresented backgrounds.

Both the exhibition and book have been made possible by the generosity of Cath Tate Cards.

Reviews

As well as an excellent book to own, the gift-giving possibilities for the right wing misogynist in your family must not be underestimated. This is a fine and important work, documenting a substantial and sustained body of excellent cartooning of all forms. There can be very few people who would be familiar with all the creators included, and this strong selection will point readers towards much to enjoy.' - Pete Redrup, The Quietus

Author Bio

NICOLA STREETEN is an anthropologist-turned-illustrator, cartoonist and comics scholar. She is the author of Billy, Me & You (Myriad, 2011) and co-founder of the international comics network Laydeez Do Comics. Her PhD from the University of Sussex is The Cultural History of British Feminist Cartoons and Comics from 1970 to 2010, with a particular focus on the use of humour. cath tate is an author of humourous books and has been publishing the work of women cartoonists for over 30 years, as featured in The Guardian.