The best of 'Wimmen's comix' and other comix by women

by Trina Robbins (Editor)

Genres: Comics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Her first comics were printed in the East Village Other. She later joined the staff of a feminist underground newspaper It Ain't Me, Babe, with whom she produced the first all-woman comic book titled It Ain't Me Babe. She became increasingly involved in creating outlets for and promoting female comics artists, through projects such as the comics anthology Wimmen's Comix. She was also the penciller on Wonder Woman for a time in the '80s.

Trina has worked on an adaptation of Sax Rohmer's Dope for Eclipse Comics and GoGirl with artist Anne Timmons for Image Comics.

Trina designed Vampirella's costume for Forrest Ackerman and Jim Warren.

In addition to her comics work, Robbins is an author of non-fiction books, including several with an emphasis on the history of women in cartooning.

She is the first of the three "Ladies of the Canyon" in Joni Mitchell's classic song from the album of the same name.

Trina Robbins won a Special Achievement Award from the San Diego Comic Con in 1989 for her work on Strip AIDS U.S.A., a benefit book that she co-edited with Bill Sienkiewicz and Robert Triptow.

Reviews

[Carly Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some real gems in here

[Fredrik Strömberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this anthology was like a trip backwards in time. Trina Robbins really did a good job as editor, as this book feel like a who's who of the first generation of underground/alternative female comics artists in the US.

The comics range from autobiographical to dystopian sci-fi, with everything imaginable in between. And the styles are all over the place, from Robbins' retro-looking clean lines to Aline Kominksy's highly personal, scratchy style. Having read several of the original issues of Wimmen's Comix, where the quality of the contributions varied much more, I can see how Robbins chose well among all the comics, and also complemented the mix with comics from other sources to get a well-balanced anthology.

The stories that grabbed me the most when reading were ones that were based on history and real life, as in Lee Mars' all too short comic about her moonshine making grandmother, or Dot Bucher's biography of the great Harriet Tubman. Oh, and the earlier mentioned Kominksy's autobiographical story about her early life is scary and hilarious at the same time.

This anthology is a historical document, as it shows just what alternative female comics artists were creating in the US in the 1970s, but it is also, still a good read.