Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Your Woman Of The Day

So, since it's International Women's Day, let's have your favorite woman artist, writer, inker, colorist, editor... I know some have had individual threads, but my memory sucks.

GO!

I loved Donna Barr's the Desert Peach

Oh, yes! I remember that one! I did a back cover for her once, would you believe?

I also got to see the stage production of the comic, when I visited Seattle years ago.

ANN NOCENTI



^^
(Left to right: Ann, Claremont, Weezie)

Her run as the writer of Daredevil, particularly once it *really* got cooking around the issue that introduces Typhoid Mary (257? 258?), through the very end (290), is not only one of the best Marvel comics runs of all time, it's also the most underrated DD run of all time (STILL hasn't been collected in its entirety -- SHAME, Marvel), *and* it's the closest Marvel has ever come to capturing the "Proto-Vertigo" flavor of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run and Jamie Delano's Hellblazer run, and so on.

As an editor, she (IMHO) helped New Mutants evolve from a fluffy, mediocre "X-kiddies" book to a gloriously weird kaleidoscope of creative madness. Again, IMHO, Chris Claremont had been phoning it in on both UXM and NM for the last dozen or so issues before Ann replaced Weezie Simonson as the X-books' main editor. Ann also edited other significant moments in Marvel Mutant Chronology, such as "The Asgard Wars" event, the "Firestar" mini-series, and New Mutants Annual 2 (Doug & Warlock rescue their teammates AND Psylocke AND Captain Britain from Mojo), which I still consider the best story Chris Claremont has ever written.

Nocenti's done some serious political writing, too. I can't recall off the top of my head which Lefty paper I've seen her in, though. It was a while back.

Ann was also EiC of "High Times" for a year or two. Not that I've ever tried...the stuff. I get high on life.

Jo Chen

She's done some great covers for both Runaways and the Buffy comic series.

I know its obvious, but someone should just say it: there aren't many people more respected, or deserving of that respect, than Karen Berger. She is, without a doubt, what I consider the GOAT of editors, meaning she is the Greatest Of All Time. This includes everyone from Max Gaines straight on through to the present.

Karen's guiding hand helped show both comics fans, and probably more importantly, creators, what heights of story-telling the medium can achieve. And even with any of the commercial failures, you could always see the creative boldness she had to give it a try. It's almost mind-boggling: here was someone who blended creativity with a sense of commercialism, and always balanced with integrity.

When her name is mentioned, I sit up and take notice.

Ramona Fradon!

Great suggestions all!

I love me some Sarah Laing and as a die-hard fan of Katherine Mansfield's writing, I'm desperate to own the new book Laing's done. Stupid bills. Grrrr...

https://sarahelaing.com/about

Diane Noomin. It's taken me a lot of years (and a lot of growing up) to fully appreciate her and her work. Now I consider her one of my top inspirations. I also like the way that she's always kept a low profile and (usually) stayed hidden behind her alter ego, DiDi Glitz, a biting yet affectionate (and surprisingly deep) caricature of the Canarsie housewives she grew up around during her teens.

(I admit it's kinda weird that I relate more to cartoonists of my mother's generation than those of my own, but...that's the way it is. Maybe it's because I spent my most impressionable years living outside the United States?)

https://womenincomics.fandom.com/wiki/Diane_Noomin

June Brigman.

Her work on Power Pack (which she co-created with Weezie Simonson) has deservedly been getting rediscovered in recent years.

But really, everything I've ever seen of hers has never been less than good. She's a solid, reliable craftsperson, with a distinctntly clean line and a particular talent for drawing horses and children and young adults. Her style fits into all sorts of different genres and idioms while remaining uniquely hers.

Last I heard, she was still going strong on the "Mary Worth" newspaper strip.

Also, during one of my dalliances with social media, she was nice to me. And she has a good sense of humor: One time, she posted a terrible mid-1990s driver license photo and captioned it, "My Billy Idol look." Another time, she posted a photo of herself and her husband all dressed up to go to a wedding and captioned it, "We clean up real nice."

I only know of June Brigman from the Power Pack stories that were reprinted here. In a marketplace filled with boy's own comics, there was something that really stood out about both June and Louise's Power Pack. It was a strip I looked forward to reading with each issue.

Thanks, Thoth.

There's also a Power Pack Summer Special by June & Weezie where they wrap up loose ends from the series, and fix some mistakes that the later creative teams made. Should be easy to find at a reasonable price.

She passed away on September 1st, 2022. May she rest in peace.

And now, only 3 months later, her good friend Aline Kominsky-Crumb, also a brilliant cartoonist with a similar outlook but a much more extroverted public persona, has died. RIP

My thoughts are with her family, friends and fans.

Looking back at recent posts, in the last week I've seen work by Fradon on a Kickstarter, Brigman on Alpha Flight right around the time I started buying it (no coincidence), and enjoyed a Berger book -Air.

Thanks, Thoth.

In recent years, Brigman has also been teaching cartooning at various institutes in her native Georgia.

Jessica Abel.

In addition to being a talented creator, she also generously gives of her time and energy to help other creators learn to be more productive and develop a better sense of the business.

International Women's Day, 2O23

As a long time (and I mean a looooong time) science fiction and fantasy fan, I would like to call out a few of my favorite authors, who happen to be female. And a favorite book.

Edith Nesbit (Five Children and It)
Zenna Henderson (The People: No Different Flesh)
Tanith Lee (Tales of the Sisters Grimmer)
Ursula K. LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea)
Diane Duane (So You Want To Be A Wizard; Doctor's Orders, and a dozen other Star Trek novels)
Connie Willis (Miracle, and Other Christmas Stories)
Dianna Wynn Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)
Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell)
Catherynne Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Boat Of Her Own Making)

Great list, Klar.

Diane Duane also co-wrote one of my favorite Transformers episodes, "Webworld."

I appreciated her talent for creating truly alien characters-- who had non-human ways of thinking and being. The cat- and whale- wizards, and the Rihannsu-Romulans, for example.

My mom was a big fan of fantasy and sci-fi, so we had a bunch of books of that sort when I was growing up, and she particularly liked those by woman writers.

So multiple books by Tanith Lee, Ursula K LeGuin, Andre Norton, Patricia McKillip and Anne McCaffery were on the menu when I was young, and less famous writers like Linda Bushyager.

All of them had an influence on my later reading preferences, and my own writing.

Anne McCaffery's To Ride Pegasus, Linda Bushyager's Master of Hawks and Patricia McKillip's Forgotten Beasts of Eld are all amazing books, even if not as popular as Andre Norton's Witch World series or Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern books.

Edith Nesbit I read as a child with wonder.
Ursula K. LeGuin has written many marvellous stories and I have read and enjoyed all the Earthsea books.
Anne McCaffery can be a great fun read. I too liked the Pegasus series along with the Ship books.
Martha Wells is a more recent writer whose Murderbot diaries are a delightful exploration of a construct (half mechanical/electronic half biological created entity) coming to terms with the world.

And now, she's doing a Power Pack 5-parter with Weezie:

https://www.comicsbeat.com/louise-simonson-june-brigman-power-packs-40th-anniversary/

Anna Haifisch, a talented young European cartoonist who takes the comforting tropes of funny animals from vintage kids' storybooks and turns them into biting satire of contemporary society. Here's a review of the book that first got Americans to pay attention to her:


https://www.tcj.com/reviews/schappi/

Right now Bilquis Evely may be my favorite artist, period.

I just did a Google search. She's incredible! One foot in the Kaluta illustrative style, the other foot in Lee/Silvestri/Capullo kind of dynamics.

Thanks, Rob!

Her work is all traditional too - she inks exclusively with brushes. It gives her work a real life that I find to be missing in most digital art.

I agree 100 percent!