The following chapters focus on these narratives of gender as rep-resented in a selection of comic strips created by women in the hey-dey of the Women’s Liberation movement and shortly thereafter. It is well-known and well-documented that comic strips are tradition-ally a male-dominated medium, yet in the late 1970s and through the 1990s a small group of female-created comic strips came to national attention, rendering a rhetoric of womanhood that, influenced by feminism, informed national opinion, simultaneously reinforcing and rejecting popular stereotypes of women, children, and family while positing new roles for women inside and outside the home.
It should be noted that, while this study focuses on comic strips appearing in newspapers, the original publication contexts of the strips varied, and, consequently, the original experience of reading the comics differed as well. Syndicated daily newspaper strips like Cathy, For Better or For Worse, Sylvia, and Stone Soup, appeared every day in black and white on the comics pages and in color on Sundays.
These strips were chosen by the syndicates and the local newspapers
to appeal to the readership, and thus represented what the newspa-per believed to be attractive to a largely white, middle-class audience.
The strips reflected the paradigm of the readers and the newspaper leadership and did so every single day. This pressure to perform 365 times per year undoubtedly led to repetition and redundancy as the characters inched their way forward in small increments, but the fre-quency also established a comforting familiarity. When one sees char-acters every day, they become a fixture, a stable and reliable source of entertainment. The anticipation to see “what happens next” builds from day to day, but never lasts long enough to lose momentum or the narrative plot threads.
In contrast, Where I’m Coming From also appeared in syndication in mainstream newspapers, but did so only once a week, and fur-thermore, appeared on the editorial pages, thus marking it as a spe-cial offering—different in temporality and temperament, separated by placement and frequency. Regardless of its location, Where I’m Coming From’s placement within the mainstream papers represents a significant moment, particularly given that it featured Black char-acters and was created by a Black woman. However, readers would certainly note the position of the strip and ascertain that it did not represent a “normal,” “everyday” comic, but rather, one with a politi-cal, editorial agenda. Dykes to Watch Out For also appeared less fre-quently, coming out every other week in alternative newspapers.
Dykes, with its classical literary allusions and episodic delivery, appropriately emulates the serial nature of Charles Dickens’s work, as both appealed to a devoted fan following who eagerly devoured the latest drama of their favorite characters. DTWOF’s publication in LGBTQ+ and alternative weeklies also influenced its reception, as such weeklies were largely available for free in larger cities and there-fore reached a more urban audience with an interest in an “alterna-tive” to the mainstream news. The strip’s placement in left-leaning publications assured a largely receptive audience, and the melodra-matic nature of the narrative helped maintain the audience’s inter-est over the two-week intervals. Ernie Pook’s Comeek also appeared in the alternative weeklies, albeit on a weekly basis, thus allowing it to address darker, more mature themes, appealing to the more radical readership.
Of course, the original experience of reading the strips serially in various newspapers isn’t feasible today, and studying newspaper-based comic strips poses special challenges for the researcher. While
many newspapers are archived in library databases, often only the stories are saved, rather than images. Locating scans of entire pages presents a much more difficult task and often requires funding to access the complete paper through sites such as newspapers.com, thus presenting serious financial roadblocks for scholars. Some of the more popular comic strips are available in anthologies, although these collections may also be expensive, out-of-print, or unavailable through library services. And, as previously indicated, even when the diligent researcher manages to obtain an anthology, they are often incomplete, collecting only bits and pieces from the strip’s run, and these books are often organized by theme rather than chronologically.
For those searching through scans of newspapers, the process is ardu-ous at best, with the quality of the scans frequently questionable, and the hunt for the comics pages within the larger newspaper incredibly time-consuming. Some creators maintain online archives, which are an invaluable resource. Lynn Johnston, for example, offers a compre-hensive online resource, archiving every strip from its initial publi-cation in 1979 until its conclusion, with cross-referencing available.
Alison Bechdel maintains a partial archive online, and other strips can be found beyond paywalls divorced from the larger context of the newspaper at sites such as UniversalUclick.com or GoComics.com.
In my research process, I relied on a combination of techniques to access the strips. Whenever possible, I tried to locate the comic strips within scans of the newspaper, which permitted me to consider the placement of the strip within the paper and on the page, as well as understanding the sequence from day to day. This, importantly, allowed me to see certain strips or arcs that are not represented in anthologies, such as Mr. Pinkley’s assault on Cathy. However, I also relied on collections, which usually offered much clearer images.
Furthermore, I was lucky enough to receive the Lucy Shelton Cas-well Research Award in the summer of 2019, which supported my research in the archives of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University, which allowed me to scruti-nize original art from many of the creators. During my visit to the Billy Ireland, I was able to examine materials not available anywhere else, such as the personal papers of Nicole Hollander and Jan Eliot.
The archives revealed Nicole Hollander’s art notebooks from school (where she received a C), in addition to notes, sketches, and corre-spondence. Studying these artifacts, I came to understand Holland-er’s process from incipient idea to published piece, and the numerous
pieces revealed a fascinating hidden history as well, including a number of letters between Hollander and other creators, in particu-lar female cartoonists. My research process reinforced my belief in the importance of archives such as that of the Billy Ireland, as well as a real need to make newspaper comic strips more available to the public, hopefully through high-quality collections as well as in online archives. Comic strips clearly deserve much more scholarly attention, and while I have done my best to provide as much original mate-rial as possible, using a combination of newspaper scans, book col-lections, and archival materials, I hope that future scholars will have more high-resolution materials available in order to replicate, as best we can, the original experience of reading the strips.
My research is presented in the chapters that follow, although I hope this is only the beginning of this particular conversation. Chap-ter One studies the importance of Cathy Guisewite’s Cathy, which ran 1976–2010 and focused on the “new,” single, career-woman, the eponymous “Cathy,” who praised feminist principles and fought for equal rights, yet also illustrated female stereotypes, as Cathy longed for shoes, chocolate, and a marriage proposal. The next section shifts from a career-focused strip to a domestic one, as Chapter Two exam-ines Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse, which ran from 1979 to 2008 and portrayed what appeared, on the surface, to be a traditional family, but that, on closer inspection, challenged readers to exam-ine controversial issues such as child abuse, homosexuality, sexual harassment, and infidelity. Presenting a much more radical, punk perspective, Chapter Three explores the early years of Lynda Barry’s strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek (1979–2008), as it concentrated on the “Battle of the Sexes,” particularly emphasizing the trials and tribulations of relationships and dating in the 1980s. Chapter Four focuses on Nicole Hollander’s Sylvia, which ran 1981–2012 and depicted an alternative understanding of a more radical feminism, providing caustic com-mentary on the partisan landscape and gender politics. A few years later, Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008) reflected the evolution of feminism, as many feminists moved to a more inclu-sive, intersectional movement, and this progression is documented in Chapter Five. The sixth chapter studies Barbara Brandon-Croft’s Where I’m Coming From, syndicated from 1989–2005, as it represented a plurality of Black women on a weekly basis, challenging stereo-types and insisting on the presence of Black women’s voices, albeit in the absence of their bodies. Chapter Seven follows the strip Stone
Soup, created by Jan Eliot in 1995 and concluding in 2020, offering an inductive argument for the ordinariness of feminism as a logical, everyday ideal enacted in the lives of a community. This concluding chapter further presents a reflection on the import of these comics from a certain time and place, exploring how they offer an evolving vision of gender.6
6. Comic strip titles have been abbreviated throughout the book, with For Better or For Worse abbreviated as FBoFW, Dykes to Watch Out For abbreviated as DTWOF, and Where I’m Coming From abbreviated as WICF.
32