Encyclopedia of Women in Comics

D'Orazio, Valerie (1974 - )

American comic book writer and editor

D'Orazio is well known as a vocal advocate for women in the comics industry, and for sharing stories of her own struggles with being bullied and harassed.

D'Orazio was hired as assistant editor at Acclaim in 1997. She joined the Creative Services Department at DC Comics in 2000. In 2002, she became assistant editor to Editorial Art Director Mark Chiarello on titles such as Aquaman, Batman Black and White, and JLA. She also assisted on such titles as Justice League of America and Identity Crisis.

After leaving DC in 2004, D'Orazio began a career as a blogger under a variety of pseudonyms. In 2006, she wrote a series of posts about her experiences with sexism in the American comic book industry, fandom, and her health struggles, entitled Goodbye to Comics.

As a writer for Marvel Comics, she wrote X-Men: Origins: Emma Frost, Punisher: Butterfly, Girl Comics, and X-Men Evolutions. She also wrote two stories for Bluewater Comics: Beyond: Edward Snowden, and Beyond: The Joker: The Man Who Laughs.

D'Orazio was President of Friends of Lulu, a non-profit organization that promoted women comic book creators and readers. She served from 2007 to 2010, after which the group was disbanded.

She was the editor-in-chief of MTV.com subsidiary MTV Geek, a blog that covered comics, video games, and geek culture, for most of its existence from 2010 to 2013.

To learn more about the amazing herstory and accomplishments of Valerie D'Orazio, please follow the link https://valeriedorazio.com to her own website. (I don't usually give opinions, but i love her website's design, it's very unique and cool).

De Campi, Alex (1972 - )

British-born American music video director, comics writer and journalist

Alex de Campi is best known for her critically acclaimed teen survival thriller No Mercy (2015) and the groundbreaking digitally-native comic Valentine (2009).

De Campi also wrote 2005's mini-series Smoke (published by IDW Publishing, art by Igor Kordey), which was nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Limited Series and her 2006 manga series Kat & Mouse (published by Tokyopop, art by Federica Manfredi). Along with Grindhouse comics for Dark Horse.

In April 2015, she launched an ongoing thriller at Image Comics titled No Mercy with Carla Speed McNeil. In addition, she wrote a mini-crossover series for Archie Comics and Dark Horse Comics titled Archie vs. Predator and the 2019 sequel Archie vs. Predator II. She also wrote a two-issue Wonder Woman story, among other comics.

In 2019 de Campi released a graphic novella called Bad Girls with artist Victor Santos recounting a robbery that takes place in the face of the revolution in Cuba. The book was highly acclaimed and won de Campi two nominations for the Eisner Award. She received two more nominations for the Eisners in 2019 for the anthology series Twisted Romance that she published around Valentine's Day for Image Comics.

To learn more about De Campi and her work in the Entertainment Industry and more, please follow this link to her own website https://www.alexdecampi.com/.

De Liz, Renae (1982 - )

American comic book writer and artist

De Liz is the creator and manager of the Womanthology project, which encompasses a series of anthologies showcasing the work of women in comics. She frequently works in collaboration with her husband, Ray Dillon, who inks and colours her art.

De Liz has drawn critical acclaim for her work as artist of the New York Times bestselling adaptation of The Last Unicorn and as writer and artist of the Eisner-nominated all-ages series The Legend of Wonder Woman.

De Liz had also posted on her twitter feed "How to De-Objectify Women" which answers the question "As an artist, what can I consider if I want to de-objectify & add power to female characters?". The post provides tips in the thread and deserves notation here.

DeConnick, Kelly-Sue (1970 - )

American comic book writer and artist/English-language adapter of manga

DeConnick is one of the comic book industry's most successful writers and has been credited with drawing female readers back to comic books. Best known for her comic book series Bitch Planet published by Image Comics, with art by Valentine De Landro. The series is a feminist portrayal of the exploitation film genre and takes place in a dystopian reality, where non-compliant women are sent to an off-planet prison. The original series published 10 issues between December 2014 and April 2017, followed by a five-issue limited series published from June to October 2017.

in the early 2000s, McConnick got a job adapting translations of Japanese manga comics for Tokyopop and Viz Media. To ensure the dialogue she was adapting to English still followed the story arcs, she worked with a translator. DeConnick did this for seven years, and estimates she wrote more than 11,000 comic-book pages.

DeConnick is a self-proclaimed feminist and uses her position in comics to promote feminism and feminist ideas and makes a point to break the "damsel in distress" trope in her work. She started the #VisibleWomen movement on Twitter in March 2016 "to disabuse folks of the notion that women comic artists are rare, to get eyes on said artists & to get them work.".

DeConnick also proposed the "Sexy Lamp Test" adjunct to the Bechdel test. In a 2012 interview, she said "If you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft. They have to be protagonists, not devices."

Diaz, Karla

Chilean manga author and illustrator

Karla Diaz is best known as the creator with her partner of the erotic comedy digital comic book Sexy Magic School, about a loser magician apprentice named Wanda, who wants her forever crush to fall in love with her.

If you want to learn more about Karla Diaz and her Sexy Magic Academy comic, please follow the link to https://subscribestar.adult/studiokablam and support her new comic.

Doran, Cooleen (1964 - )

American cartoonist, comic book writer and artist

Doran is possibly best known for her work A Distant Soil, which has been called "A forerunner of queer-friendly comics and space opera..." and is a story that centers on a young girl who is born heir to an alien religious dynasty, and explores issues of politics, gender identity and tolerance.

A Distant Soil is among the first US graphic novels created solely by a female writer/artist, appearing in fanzines as early as 1979 when the artist was still in high school. The graphic novel is also notable for being among the earliest comics to feature openly gay characters, and for featuring a gay couple as romantic leads.

During Doran's extensive career, she has illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.

Doran worked as a creator rights activist and as a lobbyist in Washington D.C., and served on the advocacy committee of the Graphic Artists Guild. Lecture venues include the Smithsonian Institution, The Singapore Writers Festival, the Comics Masterclass in Sydney, Australia, and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

To learn more about this Illustrator's prominent career, please head to this link https://www.colleendoran.com to her official website.

Doucet, Julie (1965 - )

Canadian underground Cartoonist & Artist

Best known for her autobiographical works such as Dirty Plotte and is one of the main representatives of the Quebec alternative comics and small press scene, having her autobiographical comics translated into German, Finnish and Spanish.

Doucet began self-publishing in 1988, creating her own alternative comic series Dirty Plotte, which appeared in varying formats until 1990. Drawn & Quarterly's translations in English gave her a wider audience, which led to her international breakthrough. In this autobiographical series, she criticizes the politically correct. She doesn't hesitate to depict obsessions and cruel intimacy.

Around the same time, her work popped up in several alternative reviews in the USA, such as Robert Crumb's Weirdo, Wimmen's Comix, Heck!, Buzzard and Rip-Off Comix. She won the Harvey Award for 'Best New Talent' in 1991. That same year, she went to New York for a year, and her experiences there are told in the book 'My New York Diary' (Drawn & Quarterly, 1999). She then settled in Seattle until 1995. Doucet continued to make comic books published by Drawn & Quarterly, such as 'Lève Ta Jambe Mon Poisson est Mort' (1993). She also published her 'Monkey and the Living Death' under the Chacal Puant label.

Her work is concerned with such topics as sex, violence, menstruation, and male/female issues.

Drayton, Grace G. (1978-1936)

American Illustrator

Drayton (Also known as Grace Gebbie Wiederseim) was an illustrator of children's books, fashion books, and magazine covers, and as such created the Campbell Soup Kids in 1904. She is considered to be one of the first and most successful American female cartoonists.

She also created syndicated newspaper comic strips for Hearst/King Features such as Naughty Toodles, Dottie Dimple, Dimples, Dolly Dimples and Bobby Bounce, and The Pussycat Princess. Drayton was the first woman to be a cartoonist for Hearst. The Pussycat Princess was started in 1935. After Drayton's death in 1936, the strip was continued by Ruth Carroll and Ed Anthony.

Dumm, Frances Edwina (1893-1990)

American Cartoonist, Artist, and Writer

Drew the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie for nearly five decades.

She is also notable as America's first full-time female editorial cartoonist as well as being one of the earliest female syndicated cartoonists.

Dumm was also one of the first three female cartoonists to become members of the National Cartoonists Society in 1950, along with Hilda Terry and Barbara Shermund.

Duval, Marie (1847-1890) British Cartoonist

Pseudonym of Isabelle Émilie de Tessier, known as the co-creator of the seminal cartoon character Ally Sloper, one of the earliest comic strip characters. Ally Sloper appeared for the first time in the satirical magazine Judy in 1867 originally created by Charles Henry Ross. By 1869, the strips were signed by Duval and Ross before Duval became the main artist on the strip. Duval contributed to Judy until 1885.

Dyer, Sarah (1978 - )

American comic book artist and writer

With roots in the zine movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Dyer is best known for creating the the Action Girl Comics anthology series which was awarded the "Lulu of the Year" award by the Friends of Lulu in 1998.

Dyer's first work was a small publication called The Silhouette. While in school in Gainesville, Florida in 1988, she worked on the No Idea fanzine with Var Thelin. Unsatisfied with not getting credit for her work to date, Dyer created Mad Planet as her first solo work, and started collecting female zine work.

This collection grew into a project in 1992, when Dyer created and began distributing the Action Girl Newsletter. This was a review zine, listing zines and mini-comics created by female writers and artists.

In October 1994, Dyer launched the all-female comics anthology Action Girl Comics, which ran for a total of 19 issues and showcased comics and mini-comics by female artists and writers, as well as Dyer's own Action Girl series, which featured all-female characters and depicted the world from the viewpoint of a woman.

Dyer has also colored for her husband, Evan Dorkin's work including the cover art for several ska compilation albums in the 1990s as well as writing for Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Superman Adventures, and Batman Beyond.