The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix 1972 - 2012

cover of Wimmin's Comix Number 1, November 1972 

(source: Women in Comics Wikia)

In 1972, a group of women cartoonists in San Francisco created Wimmen's Comix, an Anthology of Comics by women, challenging the sexism the faced by the male dominated comic book publishing industry.

The mission of Wimmen's Comix was to publish a comic book drawn by women cartoonists, and to leave fifty-percent of each issue open for new contributors. There was a rotating editor or co-editors and each issue had a theme.

There were seventeen issues of Wimmen's Comix published by Last Gasp Eco-Funnies, Renegade Press, and Rip Off Press between 1972 through 1992, and over a hundred new cartoonists saw their work in print, some for the first time. Many other titles grew out of this groundbreaking anthology, and today we are scattered in all corners of the United States and Europe.

The exhibit includes covers from throughout the series' run and panels of severals of the artists' work.

The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix will be on display on the 4th floor of the Main Library from November 10, 2012 through February 7, 2013.

Phil Frank, 1943-2007

On September 13, 2007 San Francisco lost a treasure, and the library lost a true friend. Phil Frank had long supported the San Francisco Public Library including the library and its employees in his comic strip and creating illustrations for library events and commemorations.












Here are a pair of images that Frank created for the Library’s 125th anniversary and for a Library amnesty for overdue material.

Our website has also reprinted the daily cartoon strips that he published in the San Francisco Chronicle celebrating the Library’s 125 anniversary.

The library has a number of works that Phil Frank wrote or illustrated. These include his beloved Farley strips:

Going Local with Farley. (Ten Speed Press, 1991).

I'm Ink Therefore I Am: Farley's San Francisco Chronicles. (Pomegranate Press, 1997) - this collections includes Farley's "other woman," Marian the librarian from his neighborhood San Francisco Public Library branch.

Don't Parade on My Reign: The "Farley" Comic Strip Appearances of "His Williness," San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. (P. Frank, 2003).

Our department also has a file about Phil Frank in our Artists File.

Phil Frank's name was also placed at the upper-most right corner of Nayland Blake's sculpture "Constellation" that runs the length of the Main Library's staircase. It can be viewed from the library's 5th floor