Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013

We are please to present Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013 in the Art, Music and Recreation Center of the Main Library.  This display is curated by Trina Robbins, a comics artist and historian, and consists of original art work and other ephemera relating to her book by the same title.

The display includes work by early comic artists such as Grace Drayton, who created Dolly Dingle and other roly-poly tots, Nell Brinkley, famous for the Brinkley Girls, Edwina Dumm, who wrote the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie which ran for over 6 decades, and Dale Messick, creator of dashing journalist Brenda Starr. There is also a display case devoted to the “fighting women of World War II” which presents the work of Tape Mills, Lily Renee, Fran Hopper and Marcia Snyder, who drew comics about competent action heroines who were not looking to be rescued but did the rescuing themselves!

Here is a reading list of Trina Robbin's writings on comics art.




 Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics, 2013).









The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons from 1913-1940, edited by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics Books, 2009).







 The Great Women Cartoonists by Trina Robbins (Watson-Guptill, 2001).