Women in Comics

Iconic Characters and Influential Creators 1923–Today

Contributors

By Susan Kirtley, Ph.D

By Nhora Lucia Serrano

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Oct 6, 2026
Page Count
400 pages
ISBN-13
9798894141329

Price

$50.00

Price

$63.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

Format:

Hardcover $50.00 $63.00 CAD

The first in-depth look at the important role women have played in comics history, from the late nineteenth century to today, with a focus on both female cartoonists and female characters.

From iconic characters including Lois Lane, Blondie, Mata Hari, and Black Widow to legendary creators such as Nell Brinkley, Jackie Ormes, Cathy Guisewite, ND Stevenson, and Alison Bechdel Women in Comics is the first-ever global history of women in comics. Spanning the period from the late nineteenth century and the rise of newspaper comics and editorial cartoons through twentieth-century comic strips, trade issues, and early graphic novels to twenty-first-century comics in digital and print form, the book is structured around six key archetypes: the Patriot, the Working Woman, the Socialite, the Fashionista, the Reporter, and the Spy. It shows the ebb and flow of these core archetypes over time and the gradual inclusion of multicultural and LGBTQ+ influences. Illustrated throughout with archival images, some never-before-seen, Women in Comics is a must have book of essential comics history for all fans of the genre. 


Susan Kirtley, Ph.D

About the Author

Susan E. Kirtley is the Professor of English and Director of Comics Studies at Portland State University. She is the author of the Eisner-winning Lynda Barry: Girlhood Through the Looking Glass and coeditor of With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics. Her book Typical Girls: The Rhetoric of Womanhood in Comic Strips was the 2022 Charles Hatfield Prizewinner for the best book in Comics Studies. She is currently the editor of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society. She lives in Portland, OR.
Nhora Lucia Serrano is the Director of Learning and Research at Hamilton College. She is the editor of Immigrants and Comics: Graphic Spaces of Remembrance, Transaction, and Mimesis, coeditor of the the Wilfrid Laurier University Press book series “Crossing Lines: Transcultural/Transnational Comics Studies”, coeditor of Curious Collectors, Collected Curiosities: An Interdisciplinary Study, and her published essays have appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Comic Studies, MLA Approaches to Teaching Orhan Pamuk, MLA Approaches to Teaching Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, X-Tra Contemporary Art Quarterly, Museological Review, and other publications. She lives in Clinton, NY. 
 

Learn more about this author