RIP Legendary Cartoonist Trina Robbins, 1938-2024

It’s a sad time in the comic book world, which is poorer today after the passing of the iconic and influential cartoonist Trina Robbins. She began making comics in the late 1960s, writing and drawing strips for the alternative newspaper the East Village Other, before moving to San Francisco in 1970 and making a splash in the underground comix scene. Her book It Ain’t Me Babe Comix was an all-female extravaganza, and she was involved with the anthology Wimmen’s Comix for decades.

She worked in the mainstream as well, most notably in the four issue The Legend of Wonder Woman run in the late 1960s. The story filled the publication gap between the cancellation of the original series and the George Pérez relaunch, keeping Wonder Woman on the stands while the character was in flux with a unique Golden Age pastiche. Some have called Trina the first female artist to ever draw Wonder Woman, which isn’t quite accurate. Another recently deceased icon, Ramona Fradon, drew Wonder Woman in the Super Friends series and Jan Duursema drew the character in a story in Wonder Woman #300 years before The Legend of Wonder Woman, but Trina was certainly the first woman to draw a full issue of a Wonder Woman comic book, and the first to work on the series for any kind of sustained arc. She returned to Wonder Woman occasionally in the years that followed, showcasing her love for the character that she grew up reading back during the amazing Amazon’s earliest run.

Trina was a comic book historian as well, a profession obviously near and dear to my own heart. Books like The Great Women Superheroes and From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Comic from Teens to Zines spotlight so many important yet forgotten works, and she shined that spotlight on little known female creators as well with books like Women and the Comics (with Cat Yronwode), The Great Women Cartoonists, Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists, 1896-2013, and more. Trina’s work has been invaluable for my own research and writing, highlighting corners of the medium that would otherwise have remained lost. Her memoir Last Girl Standing is a fantastic document as well, capturing all of the joys and frustrations of being a women in comics over her long career.

More personally, Trina was kind enough to blurb my first book, Wonder Woman Unbound, back when I was an absolute nobody. I reached out to a lot of people looking for back cover quotes and didn’t hear back from most of them, understandably, but Trina was curious enough to give the book a read. We disagreed on some aspects of the character’s history, but she appreciated the book nonetheless and graciously gave me an enthusiastic quote that still makes me smile every time I think about it.

Trina and I kept in touch after that, checking in occasionally about comics news and new publications. One day, completely out of the blue, she emailed me to say she’d found her bound collection of the Rotarian, a 1930s magazine featuring articles from William Moulton Marston, an old bit of research she no longer needed and she wanted to know if I’d like to have it. I absolutely did, and she shipped it off to me, no charge, so that it would go to a good home where it would be appreciated and possibly be of use for future research. That I have Trina Robbins’ personal collection of William Moulton Marston articles is absolutely delightful, and I’ll treasure it always.

I also got to work with Trina recently on the Wonder Women: Heroes of Heterodoxy exhibit that I co-curated for the City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn, New York. Trina was one of the subjects of the exhibit as well as a contributor, and it was lovely to Zoom with her and enjoy her fierce devotion to the character. Trina LOVED Wonder Woman, and would not at all stand for anything that would depict her in anything other than a wholly heroic light. Now, I’m a bit more of an iconoclast when it comes to these things. For example, I think the bondage aspects of early Wonder Woman comics are fascinating if problematic attempts at feminist messaging while Trina thought that was all overblown and need not be dwelled on. I so respected her love of the character, and it was such fun to see the fandom of her youth come to the fore as we discussed the show.

Part of the show focused on Trina’s time in New York City in the late 1960s, when she opened a small clothing boutique. A cool if irrelevant footnote at first glance, until you realize that Wonder Woman herself, the depowered Diana Prince, did the same thing during her Mod Era in the comics around the very same time! The synchronicity was too funny to ignore, and we ended up spotlighting Trina’s shop next to panels of Diana’s boutique.

I’m so glad I got to work with Trina on that exhibit and spend some time with her, and I’m so sad she’s gone now. She’s an absolute icon and trailblazer as a cartoonist, and a massive influence and inspiration for me as a historian. On top of all of that, she was so kind. Every story I’ve seen since the news broke has been about how supportive and wonderful she was, and I can only say the same. She helped launch my career, lending me the awesome gift of her cachet at a time when I had little of my own, and I owe her so much. So many do, and she’ll be very missed.

My New Book, Batgirl and Beyond: The Dynamic History of the Heroines of Gotham City, Coming November 2024!

I broke the news in my post last week celebrating the tenth anniversary of Wonder Woman Unbound (for which, egregiously, I have yet to receive ANY gifts, even though I was expecting a plethora of tin and/aluminum presents, as is customary for a tenth anniversary), but now I have spent the day updating my website with fun new purple graphics so it’s time for an official post: I wrote another book! And we’re going back to some familiar stomping grounds for Batgirl and Beyond: The Dynamic History of the Heroines of Gotham City. We spent some time in Gotham with The Many Lives of Catwoman, and Not All Supermen touched on several Batgirls, though briefly. Now we’re doing a deep dive into all of them, Betty, Barbara, Cass, Stephanie, and Barbara again! It’s all Batgirl, all the time.

And not just each character’s time as Batgirl, either. For many of us, Barbara Gordon is much better known as Oracle, and we’ll explore the important history of her time in that role. Cassandra Cain was unceremoniously villainized after her time as Batgirl, and of course we’re going to dig into all of those shenanigans. And Stephanie Brown was Spoiler AND Robin before she was Batgirl, with interesting and troubling moments therein that we’ll examine in depth. Plus television, cartoons, movies, video games, and more on top of the main comic book fun.

There’s also a larger angle to Batgirl and Beyond. It’s a history of the characters, absolutely, but it looks at the evolution of underrepresented fandom as well, with each Batgirl appealing to a unique group that was largely ignored by DC Comics. In the early 1960s, Betty Kane was a heroine for young girls, a demographic the publisher was quickly moving beyond. Barbara’s women’s lib values resonated with older female fans, and as Oracle she was a powerful figure in disability representation. Cass was a woman of colour in the starkly monochromatic superhero genre, while Steph dealt with issues like teen pregnancy, sexual abuse, and more. All together, looking closely at the different Batgirls also offers an evolving portrait of the face of superhero fandom and highlights DC’s many missed opportunities to expand their narrow audience.

Plus the last chapter is all about the much lamented, wholly doomed Batgirl movie. What a mess that cancellation was, and what a potentially cool, exciting movie we all missed out on! The entire saga is fascinating and infuriating.

Batgirl and Beyond is coming out this November, again from the fine folks at Rowman & Littlefield. The tentative date is November 19, but we’re a while out yet and that’s not totally set in stone. I’ll update you all as plans firm up. But November for sure, and I think you’re all going to enjoy this one. The Batgirls are such amazing characters, and I had the best time researching and writing this. I’m so excited to share more about it with you all soon, and to get your reaction to the book itself later this year!

Happy TENTH Anniversary To Wonder Woman Unbound!

Today in “posts designed to make me feel extremely old,” my very first book, Wonder Woman Unbound, came out TEN years ago on this very day! I mean, sort of. Unless your book is famous, release dates are kind of amorphous. It just comes out around then. But April 1, 2014, was the official date, and now it’s been ten years, somehow.

Getting Wonder Woman Unbound published was the culmination of a long dream. It was an adaptation of my Master’s thesis, rewritten for a general audience instead of academic-ese, and I graduated with that degree in 2009. It took me a year to rewrite it, another year to get an agent, yet another year to rewrite it again, and another year after that to sell it. I have so many different versions of this book buried in the files of my computer, but the one that finally saw print was the best of them all. Everyone at Chicago Review Press embraced the project enthusiastically, and their editorial notes helped turn it into something I’m really proud of.

Also, I got to design the cover! Fun fact, the cover was a huge sticking point for selling the book because we couldn’t license an official image from DC (they are rarely helpful in that regard). Trying to brainstorm an alternative, I taught myself how to use a Photoshop knockoff (shout out to Inkscape!) and designed a silhouette with the iconic Wonder Woman hands on hips pose with a few classic accessories, like a star for the tiara, bracelets, and a lasso. Then I just put stars everywhere, because Wonder Woman. The editor liked the look of it, and while I assumed they were going to take it as inspiration and do a fancier version, they instead told me that they liked it so much that they were going to use it as the actual cover! Thus began by brief career as a cover designer (I did my Lois Lane and Catwoman books too).

I’ve gotten to write several more books since, which is amazing, but Wonder Woman has been my real calling card. I got to go to Amsterdam to talk about the evolution of her costumes at a film festival. I was on TV, talking about Wonder Woman in AMC’s Secret History of Comics. I consulted on the US Post Office’s official Wonder Woman stamps. I got to co-curate a museum exhibit about the history of Wonder Woman in Brooklyn. The character has opened a lot of cool, unexpected doors for me, all of which have been so fun and interesting. I owe her a lot.

And I owe all of you a lot as well! Thanks to all of you who have bought the book, listened to the audiobook, checked it out from the library, recommended it to a friend, or engaged with it in any other way! Your support of the book made it a success, and has allowed me to keep writing my very weird, detailed deep dives into iconic female comic book characters. You’re the best readers, and I appreciate you all so much.

Speaking of deep dives, I took a more macro view with my last book, Not All Supermen, but on this tenth anniversary of Wonder Woman Unbound I am very excited to announce that my next book is another deep dive coming this November from Rowman & Littlefield:

It’s a Batgirl book, finally! I’ve been trying to get this one off the ground for years, and I’m delighted it’s coming out now. Getting to explore the history of Barbara, Cass, and Stephanie was so fun, and the book has the larger aim of examining each incarnation of Batgirl as representative of a marginalized segment of superhero fandom. Batgirl always had a dedicated fanbase, but they often weren’t the sort of fans DC was interested in pursuing. I’ll unpack all of this fascinating history in Batgirl and Beyond, this November!

The book fun never stops, gang. Ten years after Wonder Woman Unbound came out, a sixth book is coming. It’s a dang hexalogy of comic book history! Thanks again for reading, and here’s to another ten years of books!

Heroines Who Changed the Superhero Game

It’s always fun to recommend books, and when the folks at Booklisti asked me to make a list doing just that, I jumped at the chance to talk up some of my favourite characters of all time. I decided to take a broad, historical perspective, as I am wont to do, and the result is a fun list spotlighting some amazing female superheroes!

I went decade by decade, picking a heroine from each era that I thought best captured the time period. I started with Wonder Woman in the 1940s, of course. It’s kind of my thing. Batwoman was my choice for the 1950s, and I stayed in Gotham for Batgirl in the 1960s. Similar names, extremely different characters! I switched publishers in the 1970s and went with the original Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, then returned to Marvel for the 1980s with Storm. The 1990s were a bit of a cheat because I picked an entire team, the Birds of Prey, and I returned to Batwoman in the 2000s but I think that’s a fair move since it’s basically a completely different character and also Elegy is SO good. Finally, I chose the new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, for the 2010s, because I love her so dang much.

The 2020s aren’t over yet so I didn’t do a pick there. Now that I think about it, though, who would be the front runner at this stage? Tough question. Hindsight helps so much in these situations. I might pick Dreamer at this stage, actually. The move from TV to comics is unique, and I love how Nicole Maines has stayed with her character. Man, I’ll be pondering this for days now.

Head on over to Booklisti to see the full list of recommendations, including various Omnibuses and Masterworks and the like! You can also check out the list of my own books, though if you’re on my website you’re probably familiar with them already. Also, explore the website! It’s a fun time.

My Top Three Comics of 2023

Over at Shepherd, I’ve joined 1200 different authors (yeah, 1200!) in discussing our favourite reads of 2023. When asked, I knew I had to go all comics because that’s the kind of nerd I am. Also, there were some amazing comics out this year.

My top pick was Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by the amazing team of writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artists Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott. If you’re the sort of person who reads my blog, you’re probably the sort of person who’s already read Historia, but in case you haven’t, you need to. It’s an origin story for the Amazons that is bold and furious and powerful, and also absolutely gorgeous. Best book of the year, hands down, nothing comes close.

Next up was Catwoman: Lonely City by Cliff Chiang. Technically it came out in collected form at the very end of last year, but the rules weren’t hard and fast. Chiang is my very favourite artist ever, and this book is such a joy. Him drawing Catwoman, and all of Gotham entirely, is a wonderful time.

Finally, I chose the first volume of Kelly Thompson’s Captain Marvel Omnibus, with art from Carmen Carnero, Lee Garbett, Cory Smith, and more. I loved this run so much, and I remain sad that it’s all over. It was a fun, heartwarming, action-packed fifty issues, and this massive collection contains the first big chunk of it. It’s a beast, but an excellent entry point if you missed out on this treat of a run.

You can read more about my picks by visiting Shepherd, and you can also check out their full year-end collection of author’s favorites to see which books made the most lists. It’s very cool to see what everyone was enjoying over the past year!

Betty and Veronica Interview with Sara Century, Available For Your Listening Fun on Queer Spec!

It’s me, back on another podcast! And this time I’m returning to Queer Spec‘s Patreon, chatting with the always excellent Sara Century about all things Betty and Veronica. We talked about Not All Supermen a few months back, but when we got to the end of that conversation we realized we hadn’t touched on my Betty and Veronica book at all. As luck would have it, the audiobook was due to come out this summer so we set up another chat to talk about our favourite Riverdale gals specifically, and you can listen to it now for free on the Queer Spec Patreon.

We hit all the highlights of Betty and Veronica’s intriguing history, of course teasing that there’s even more fun and fascinating information in the book itself. We chatted about several different eras of the comics, and you know we had to dig into Riverdale for a while because that show is wild and ridiculous as well as surprisingly moving and lovely at times. I’ll never pass up a chance to dive into the zany brilliance of Riverdale.

Check out the interview over on the Queer Spec Patreon, and while you’re there take a peek at all of their other great stuff! The Bitches on Comics podcast is excellent, all of Sara’s other interviews are great, and the organization as a whole is so fun and cool and definitely worth supporting. Also, don’t forget to check out the audiobook for Betty and Veronica: The Leading Ladies of Riverdale if you haven’t already!

The Real Treasure of Riverdale was the Friends We Made Along the Way

It’s been a week since Riverdale wrapped its seven season run for good, and hopefully you’ve stopped weeping now and are beginning to move on from the loss. It was a ridiculous program, to be sure, but so much fun, and I’m definitely going to miss the unpredictable chaos it brought each week. Even more than that, I’m going to miss the fantastic portrayals of some of my favourite characters ever, especially Lili Reinhart as Betty and Camila Mendes as Veronica. They were perfectly cast, and brought the characters to life so well.

With the series wrapped, I wrote a piece looking back at the legacy of Riverdale for the Daily Planet, a very cool news and pop culture website based on the iconic Metropolis publication. Riverdale came along at just the right time for Betty and Veronica, debuting in the midst of Archie Comics’ recent renaissance that saw hit books like Life With Archie, Afterlife With Archie, and a much lauded modernized Archie reboot. As fun as those books were, however, they all failed to capture the core of what has made Betty and Veronica so great for the past eight decades: their friendship. They were rivals or kept separate for most of these new ventures, their relationship set aside for narratives that focused on Archie first and foremost.

Riverdale corrected that grave error, centering Betty and Veronica’s friendship immediately in the series premiere. After a bit of the usual teen drama, the gals became fast friends straight away, and stayed that way for the show’s entire run. There were ups and downs, of course. Serial killers and evil cults and time travel are going to cause some issues. But through it all, Betty and Veronica loved each other, supported each other, and had each other’s backs when it mattered the most.

Head over to the Daily Planet to read more about how Riverdale righted Betty and Veronica, and don’t forget to check out the new audiobook of Betty and Veronica: The Leading Ladies of Riverdale, which is available now!