Thursday, December 12, 2013

Pretty In Ink

I've been waiting for this survey of women comic artists from 1896 to present to be published by Seattle based Fantagraphic Books! I was a little worried as I have Trina's 1985 book, and knowing this to be an update of it I wondered how much might be repeated, but am happy that in fact many new examples are offered of the women's work and while some others were in the previous book they are often larger or even in color here! So much more has been added about many of the earlier favorite artists such as Gladys Parker, Fran Hopper and Ruth Atkinson, and some new to me old names have been added. I was also quick to flip to the last chapter and catch up with more recent work in the format and enjoyed that section quite a lot. Certainly worth the price of admission, and it's a very attractive quality 180 page package all around. Some of the non-North American artists who had been included in 1985 were dropped however, so I suppose something is lost on those who missed that book (which I understand is somewhat hard to find these days).

Trina Robbin's Pretty In Ink (link to Fantagraphics)