Encyclopedia of Women in Comics

Hagio, Moto 萩尾望都 (1949 - )

Japanese mangaka

Regarded for her contributions to shōjo manga (manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of all time, being referred to as the "god of shōjo manga" (少女漫画の神様, shōjo manga no kami-sama) by critics.

Hagio made her debut as a manga artist in 1969 at the publishing company Kodansha before moving to Shogakukan in 1971, where she was able to publish her more radical and unconventional works that had been rejected by other publishers. Her first serializations at Shogakukan – the vampire fantasy The Poe Clan, the shōnen-ai (male–male romance) drama The Heart of Thomas, and the science fiction thriller They Were Eleven – were among the first works of shōjo manga to achieve mainstream critical and commercial success.

Hagio subsequently emerged as a central figure in the Year 24 Group (a term coined by academics and critics to refer to a group of female authors in the early 1970s who helped transform shōjo manga from being created primarily by male authors). These women were born in the year 1949 in the Gregorian calendar, or Shōwa 24 – the 24th year of the Shōwa era in the Japanese calendar which resulted in the name "Year 24".

Since the 1980s, Hagio has drawn primarily adult-oriented manga in the manga magazine Petit Flower and its successor publication Flowers, notably Marginal, A Cruel God Reigns, and Nanohana.

Harding, LaVerne (1905-1984)

American animator and cartoonist

Harding, who worked for the Walter Lantz studio for much of her half-century career in animation, is among the earliest woman animators. She is also one of the few women to receive a Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement, one of the most prestigious awards in animation (only nine women have been recognized out of 161 awards given). She won this award in 1980.

Working for the Lantz studio from 1932 until 1960, Harding was particularly noted for her work on Woody Woodpecker cartoons; she designed the version of the character that was in use from 1950 to 1998. When Tex Avery offered her to go with him to Warner Bros. Cartoons, she refused. At first, she was an inker, but in 1934, she was ranked up to animator, and from 1940 to 1960, Harding was credited as such. From 1954 to 1955, Harding reunited with Avery to animate on his cartoons at Lantz.

While working for the Lantz studios, Harding also drew a humorous newspaper strip, Cynical Susie, for United Feature Syndicate from 1932 to 1934. Cynical Susie revolved around the exploits of the titular heroine (a dwarf woman) and her pet cow, Lily Whey. After leaving Lantz, she animated for Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Yogi Bear. She later worked for DePatie-Freleng Enterprises on Pink Panther cartoons, and was briefly employed at Warner Bros. and Filmation as well.

Hasegawa, Machiko 長谷川町子 (1920-1992) Japanese mangaka

Machiko is considered to be one of the first female manga artists. She started her own comic strip, Sazae-san, in 1946. It reached national circulation via the Asahi Shimbun in 1949, and ran daily until Hasegawa decided to retire in February 1974. All of her comics were printed in Japan in digest comics; by the mid-1990s, Hasegawa's estate had sold over 60 million copies in Japan alone.

The anime adaption began in 1969 and is still running today, making it the longest animated series of all time.

Hays, Ethel (1892-1989)

American cartoonist

Hays is specializing in flapper-themed comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s. She drew in Art Deco style. In the later part of her career, during the 1940s and 1950s, she became one of the country's most accomplished children's book illustrators.

Hays' first syndicated strip was called 'Ethel', and consisted of satire and social commentary. She also made a one-panel cartoon about 'Flapper Fanny', and in 1928 she started doing Sunday pages. Ethel Hays, who had gotten married in 1924, found that by the time she had her second child, the workload was becoming too heavy, and she turned 'Flapper Fanny' over to Gladys Parker. Other flapper strips Ethel Hays created were 'Marianne', a rich girl who has no cares in the world, and 'Vic and Ethel' a carefree couple. All these comics had the noted characteristic of the flapper, one who parties alot, dresses extravagantly, and is carefree.

Together with Dot Cochran, Virginia Huget, Fay King, Virginia Krausmann, Gladys Parker and Dorothy Urfer, Ethel Hays counts as a pioneer of female cartooning, gracing newspaper pages of the 1920s and 1930s with sophisticated and witty society girls.

Henderson, Erica

American comic book artist and animator

Henderson is best known for her work on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Jughead, and for her animation work on Venture Bros.

During the break between her junior and sophomore year in college, Henderson worked as an intern for World Leaders Entertainment, where she worked on the third season of the animated television series Venture Bros. She began her work on that program doing storyboards for animatics, which involved preparing backgrounds by converting background artist Denny Finkel's line drawings into Flash animation so that they could then be sent to Korea to be painted. It was her first time using a Cintiq drawing tablet. That season would later premiere in June 2008.

Henderson illustrated Marvel Comics' Squirrel Girl for its first 37 issues before leaving the series in March 2018, although she continued to illustrate the series' covers. Graeme Virtue of The Guardian praised her artwork on the series, saying, "The real selling point is the gorgeous, cartoon-influenced art by Erica Henderson, which looks like nothing else Marvel is putting out at the moment".

Herman, Ruth Rae (1920-1996)

American publisher, editor, writer, penciller, and inker

In the early 1940s, she began working for Frank Temerson using the name ‘Rae R. Hermann’. By 1942 ‘Ray R. Hermann’ began appearing in the fine print of some Temerson comics credited with executive positions all the way up to “co-owner”.

From 1943 to 1944, she was managing editor and co-owner of Continental Magazines, publishing Cat Man Comics and Terrific Comics.

From 1946 to 1955, Ray Hermann was the co-owner of Orbit Publishing along with Marjorie May. Their titles included The Westerner Comics, Toytown Comics, and Love Diary.

In 1947, she was a founder of the Association of Comic Magazine Publishers, an industry group promoting a Publication Code and a Seal of Approval in response to social and political anti-comics sentiment.

Although the ACMP only lasted a few years, the principles of its Code are reflected in the Comics Code that did become widespread in 1953.

Hetrick, Meghan

American Illustrator of comic books, gaming, and narrative

Hetrick is an accomplished artist known primarily for her work in the comic book industry. She has contributed both interior art and cover art to a variety of high-profile comic titles.

Some of her most well-known work includes projects for DC Comics, such as Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman and Harley Quinn and Red Thorn for DC/Vertigo, as well as covers for series across major publishers like Marvel (Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel, and Incredible Iron Man) and Image Comics.

Hetrick's artistic style is characterized by highly detailed line work, expressive character designs, and her ability to portray both emotional depth and dynamic action scenes.

Hetrick has also worked outside of comics, in both the animation and gaming fields, for clients such as Warner Brothers Animation, Epic Games, and Ubisoft.

To learn more about Hetrick's extraordinary career, please follow the link https://meghanhetrick.com/ to her official website.

Hicks, Faith Erin

Canadian cartoonist and animator

Hicks has created a number of graphic novels, both as sole creator (such as Zombies Calling! and Friends with Boys) and as a collaborator (Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong and Buffy: The High School Years), as well as serialized works like The Adventures of Superhero Girl and Demonology 101 , a long-running webcomic which Hicks is possibly best known for.

Since the beginning of Demonology 101, Hicks has completed a spin-off of the D101 character Sachs entitled A Distant Faith, She also created a zombie-movie inspired comic called Zombies Calling, as well as the dystopian comic Ice (originally published on Modern Tales).

She drew backgrounds for the George of the Jungle animated series and created Jenny’s Brothers, a comic strip to the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. Her original comic series The Adventures of Superhero Girl ran weekly in Halifax's local free paper, The Coast, as well as on her own website. and was collected into a book by Dark Horse Comics.

Hicks has won two Eisner Awards. In 2014, she won Best Publication for Kids for The Adventures of Superhero Girl. Then in 2019 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids (ages 9–12) for The Nameless City: The Divided Earth.

To learn more about Hicks and her career and work, please follow the link to her official website https://www.faitherinhicks.com/.

Higgins, Violet Idelle Moore (1886-1967)

American cartoonist, illustrator, and writer

Moore was an American artist, comic book creator and children's story author. She attended the Chicago Institute of Art in the early twentieth century before moving to New York. Her work, highly valued at auction, includes illustrations for Pinocchio, Heidi and The Three Bears

In 1913, Higgins painted a cover for the Saturday Evening Post that focused on the United States women's suffrage movement. Around the mid-1910s, she created a series of books for the Whitman Publishing Co. under the name "Story Time Tales". The books contained retellings of traditional stories from different areas of the world.

By the 1920s, Higgins worked for newspapers as a journalist. She interviewed and wrote articles about celebrities, and wrote and illustrated for the NEA (National Education Association) along with her husband.

Higgins was also the illustrator of the comic strip Drowsy Dick, first published in the Sunday World. The comic was originally illustrated by Ernest J. King, but after less than a month, the strip was taken over by Higgins. Her first comic of Drowsy Dick was published on October 10, 1926.The cartoon was later dropped from the newspaper when they lowered their number of comic pages. In the 1920s, after readers asked about the comic's absence, the comic was brought back and published in the New York World.Between 1946 and 1947, she additionally was an illustrator for the comic book, Treasure Chest.

From 1954 to 1963, she was a feature writer and illustrator for the Associated Press, with an illustrated children's feature named Junior Editors. Junior Editors started in 1954 and was meant to capture children's attention during the competing rise of magazines and television. The feature ran six times a week and included text and a do-it-yourself section for children.

Hodge, Chinika (1984 - )

American poet, educator, playwright and screenwriter

Hodge has received national recognition for her publications, especially her artistic work on gentrification.

Hodge was a 2012 Artist in Residence at The Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, CA. In January 2013, Hodge was a Sundance Feature Film lab Fellow for her script, "700th&Int'l." In June 2013 she began as a first-year fellow at Cave Canem’s summer retreat.

Since 2005, Hodge has worked in various capacities at Youth Speaks/The Living Word Project, a San Francisco-based literary arts non-profit. During her tenure there, she served as Program Director, Associate Artistic Director, and worked directly with Youth Speaks’ core population as a teaching artist and poet mentor.

She has acted in comparable capacities in New York and Los Angeles at Urban Word NYC and Get Lit: Words Ignite. Her poems, editorials, interviews and prose have been featured in Newsweek, San Francisco Magazine, Believer Magazine, PBS, NPR, CNN, C-Span, and in two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry. In 2013 and 2014, she was featured in two of Watsky's music videos as a guest rapper and writer. She is also the author of the book Dated Emcees (City Lights, 2016), a collection of poetry about urban hip-hop.

In April 2021, Hodge had been hired as the head writer on the Marvel Studios streaming series Ironheart for Disney+.

Holly-Rosing, Madeleine

American comic book writer, screenwriter, novelist, publisher, and producer

Madeleine Holly-Rosing is the writer/creator of the steampunk supernatural graphic novel, prose, and audio drama series, Boston Metaphysical Society and her new graphic novel series, Morgana Pendragon. Winner of the Sloan Fellowship for screenwriting, and the Gold Aurora and Bronze Telly for a PSA produced by Women In Film, she has also won numerous awards while completing the UCLA MFA Program in Screenwriting. She has run seventeen successful crowdfunding campaigns, guest lectured at UCLA Professional Programs, Dreamworks Animation, and Scriptwriter’s Network as well as published the book, Kickstarter for the Independent Creator.

The first novel in the series, Boston Metaphysical Society: A Storm of Secrets, was awarded a Silver Medal in the SciFi/Fantasy category as well as The Write Companion Award for Best Overall TOP PICK - Adult, Children's and Young Adult categories in the 2019 Feathered Quill Book Awards.

In 2021, she wrote and produced the audio drama, Boston Metaphysical Society: The Ghost Ship.

Other short comic projects include The Scout which is part of The 4th Monkey anthology, The Sanctuary (The Edgar Allan Poe Chronicles anthology), The Marriage Counselor (Cthulhu is Hard to Spell anthology), The Glob (Night Wolf), The Infinity Tree (Menagerie: Declassified), Monster (The Dark Side of Purity Culture anthology), and Frenemies (Holiday Spirits: Monster Special).

She is currently writing a series for Joe Benitez’s, Lady Mechanika.

To learn more, please visit http://www.queenofmercia.com.

Hope, Sandra (1968 - )

American comic book inker

Sandra Hope is a professional inker with 25+ years of experience in the comic book business and is best known for her extraordinary inking work on many of the industry's biggest comic book titles.

Sandra Hope began her comic book career in 1996 working for Image Comics as an inker for the series Black Ops. This was followed by work on the comics Crimson and Danger Girl both for Cliffhanger, which was published through Jim Lee's Wildstorm Studios imprint. Additional titles with Image Comics/Wildstorm Productions include Gen 13, Stormwatch,Team Zero, The Intimates, Wetworks, Robotech: From the Stars and Backlash.

In 1997, Sandra was hired by Marvel Comics and worked on titles like Iron Man and Captain America.

in 2002, Sandra Hope began working for DC Comics with her first published work on the title Adventures of Superman with work following on titles like Batgirl (2009-2010), Teen Titans: Around the World (2007 on covers), Rage the Red Lanterns (2008), Batman Cacophony (2008), Flashpoint (2011), Superman: Earth One (2013), Batman/Superman (2013),The Multiversity: Mastermen (2014-2015), Covergence (2015), Aquaman (2015),Terrifics (2018), and Superman: Up In The Sky (2019-2020) with Batman the Detective (2021-) being her most current work.

If you want to learn more about Sandra Hope and her career, please follow the link https://www.sandrahope.net/ to her official website.

Hopper, Fran (1922-2017)

American comic book artist/Inker/Penciller

During 1930s–1940s (period known as the Golden Age of Comic Books) Frances R. Deitrick became one of the earliest women in the field. Hopper drew primarily for the publisher Fiction House on features, including Jane Martin, Glory Forbes, Camilla, Mysta of the Moon, and Gale Allen and Her All Girl Squadron.

Hopper entered the comic-book field in 1943 through the S. M. Iger Studio, one of the era's "packaging studios" that produced outsourced comics for publishers. Because comic creators were not routinely credited at the time, Hopper's first comics work is undetermined. Her first confirmed credit, under the name Fran Dietrick, is as penciler and inker of the six-page science-fiction feature "Norge Benson" in publisher Fiction House's Planet Comics #24 (cover-dated May 1943).

Horie, Tanya Laib

American comic book colorist

Horie began her career working for Image Comics as a colorist in 1994 their imprint Wildstorm on the Wetworks #1 with Whilce Portacio as artist.

Later she moved to be with her fiancé, Richard Horie at Extreme Studios. They have been working together as team in most every job they land. Their first monthly book after coloring covers for DC Comics started with Aquaman #50. Later on she worked on books like Superman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, JSA, Teen Titans, Batman, Adventures of Superman, Batman Harley Quinn, Neverwhere, A.D.D., Dial H and many more.

Most recently she has worked in the Constantine: Futures End as well as Constantine and Superman titles, part of the New 52 series.

Howard, Dr. Sheena C.

American academic, social justice activist, cultural critic author, and producer

Dr. Howard is the first Black woman to win an Eisner Award for her book Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation (2013).

The book, edited with Dr. Ron Jackson II, is based on her dissertation "African American Communication Dynamics Through Black Comics Strips." In the book Howard discusses Black dominant masculinity within the semantic and artistic views of the comic strip and African American vernacular English. She also traces the history of Black cartoonists' contributions to the medium of comics

In her next book, Black Queer Identity Matrix: Towards An Integrated Queer of Color Framework (2014), Howard focuses on the Black lesbian female identity, addressing the intersectionality of race, gender and sexual orientation, and discussing the need for a queer of color conceptual framework. The book calls for a more cohesive outline within queer studies, with a deeper perspective on the variables of ethnicity and race.

Although the "Black Queer Identity Matrix" comes out of a communication context, scholars have used the Black Queer Identity Matrix in the context of social justice and equity reform, as well as a framework that highlights the difference between queer theory and queer identity.

To learn more about Dr. Sheena Howard's work and professional career, please follow this link https://sheenachoward.com to her website.

Hulme, Etta (1923-2014)

American editorial cartoonist

Etta Grace Parks was one of the first women to find success as an editorial cartoonist, establishing herself before other trailblazers such as M. G. Lord of Newsday and Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News in the 1980s. In the late 1980s, she was thought to be one of only five or six women employed as an editorial cartoonist in the United States.

Etta won the National Cartoonists Society Editorial Cartoon Award for 1981 and 1998. In addition, she was elected president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists.

Her syndicated cartoons started appearing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1972.[1] Star-Telegram editorial page director Tommy Denton called her "one of the most insightful and provocative cartoonists in the country."

Hummel, Joye Evelyn (1924-2021)

American Comic Book writer

Along with Dorothy Woolfork, they are both credited with being the first women to have written for the comic book character Wonder Woman. However, because these stories had been ghost-written, it cannot be confirmed which one was the "first" exactly.

Hummel had ghost-written more than 70 Wonder Woman stories between 1944 to 1947 (she took over for Marston when he became ill, with Wonder Woman issues #12-29 and featured intermittently in Sensation Comics between issues #43-71) It was in these three years where the character reached its major success.

She left the title when the male dominated influence over Wonder Woman by the male staffers resurfaced affecting the progression of the character's feminist strengths made under William Moulton Marston's early writing and carried forward by Hummel's.

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