Encyclopedia of Women in Comics

Tallan, Tara

Canadian comic book creator and self-publisher

Tallen (Née Jenkins) is best known for her self published comic Galaxion, which first appeared around 1993 as one half of a photocopied, digest size flip comic book Salmagundi.

Tara wrote, drew, inked, lettered, and published Galaxion in print from 1993 to 1999, and during that time appeared at comic conventions across North America. She was nominated for the Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent in 1998 and the Friends of Lulu Kim Yale Award for Best New Talent in 1998 and 1999. After a six-year break from comics in order to raise a family, she launched the webcomic version of Galaxion in 2006 as a bi-weekly (later weekly). Originally hosted by Girlamatic, the comic went on hiatus in August 2018.

In March, 2010, Tara was nominated for a Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Webcomic.

To see Tallan's famous work, please follow the link http://galaxioncomics.com/ to her official website where you can read the comic itself!

Takahashi, Rumiko 高橋留美子 (1957 - )

Japanese mangaka

Called "the Queen of Manga" or "the Princess of Manga" Takahashi is considered to be the greatest selling female comic book artist of all time and the first female mangaka to gain major success in the shōnen manga genre.

Takahashi's professional career began in 1978 with her first published work Katte na Yatsura (Those Selfish Aliens). Other notable works include Urusei Yatsura (1978-1987), Maison Ikkoku (1980-1987), Mermaid Saga (published sporadically from 1984-1994), Ranma ½ (1987-1996) and Inuyasha (1996-2008).

in 2020, Takahashi was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, becoming the second woman in the history of the award to win it.

Takaya, Natsuki 高屋奈月 (1973 - )

Japanese mangaka

Takaya is best known for being the creator of the series Fruits Basket.

Her manga series Fruits Basket, which debuted in 1998, became one of the best selling shōjo manga in North America. Fruits Basket has also been adapted into an anime series twice; the first, which premiered in 2001, aired as one season of twenty six episodes. The second, which premiered in 2019, consists of two seasons of twenty five episodes and the third season comprised 13 episodes and concluded in 2021.

In 2001, Takaya received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo manga for Fruits Basket. As revealed in a sidebar of Fruits Basket, Takaya broke her drawing arm after Fruits Basket volume six was published. She had to go into surgery, and as a result, had put Fruits Basket on a brief hiatus. Takaya made a full recovery, but complained that her handwriting had gotten uglier due to the surgery.

Takemiya, Keiko 竹宮惠子 (1950 - )

Japanese mangaka, university professor and administrator

As part of the Year 24 Group, she was a leading figure in shōjo manga scene in the 1970s creating such manga as Kaze to Ki no Uta, Toward the Terra, Natsu e no Tobira. Additionally she became head of the Faculty of Manga at Kyoto Seika University and then later became the president of the university.

As part of the Year 24 Group, Takemiya pioneered a genre of shōjo manga about love between young men called shōnen-ai (lit. "boy love"). In 1970, she published a historical short story titled Sunroom Nite ("In the Sunroom") in Bessatsu Shōjo Comic, which is possibly the first shōnen-ai manga ever published. Illustrating a tragic romance between a Romani boy and his wealthy classmate, it contains the earliest known male–male kiss in shōjo manga.

She received the 9th Seiun Award for best science fiction manga for Toward the Terra in 1978, and the 25th (1979) Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōjo and shōnen category for both Kaze to Ki no Uta and Toward the Terra in 1980. She is regarded as one of the first successful crossover women artists to create both shōjo and shōnen manga.

Since 2000, Takemiya has taught at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga. That university is the only one in Japan with its own manga department as well as a museum showcasing manga art. In 2010, the university offered a Masters graduate degree, where Takemiya would teach. She served as Dean of the Faculty of Manga from April 2008 until March 2013. She was also president of the university from April 2014 to March 2018.

In 2001, she received the Avon Achievement Award for women who contribute to society. From 2009 to 2014, she served as a member of the selection committee for the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prizes. In 2012, she received the Japan Cartoonists Association's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award in recognition of her entire body of work. In 2014, she was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan for her contributions to manga.

Takeda, Sana (1977 - )

Japanese comic book artist and illustrator

Takeda is an Eisner award-winning illustrator who is best known for being the co-creator of the Hugo Award winning series Monstress with Marjorie Liu.

At age 20, Takeda started working as a 3D CGI designer for Sega, creating pictures of soccer and NBA athletes. She became a freelance artist when she was 25.

After sending her portfolio to C. B. Cebulski, she began working on several projects for Marvel Comics, including X-Men, Venom, Civil War II and Ms. Marvel.

In 2006-2008, she worked with C. B. Cebulski on their creator-owned series Drain.

In 2010, she started to work with Marjorie Liu on the title X-23 for Marvel Comics and in 2013 the two started to work on their creator-owned series Monstress.

To learn more of Takeda's professional art career, please follow the link https://sanatakeda.com/ to her official website.

Takeuchi, Naoko 武内直子 (1967 - )

Japanese mangaka

Takeuchi is best known as the author of Sailor Moon, one of the most popular manga series of all time. She has won several awards, including the 1993 Kodansha Manga Award for Sailor Moon. the creation of the massively popular manga and anime series Sailor Moon significantly impacted the magical girl genre and pop culture worldwide.

Takeuchi worked on the ice-skating series The Cherry Project, which was serialized in Nakayoshi from late 1990 to 1991. While working on The Cherry Project, Takeuchi wanted to do a manga on outer space and girl fighters. Her editor, Fumio Osano, asked her to put the fighters in sailor suits. This concept would later become a one-shot called Codename: Sailor V, which would later begin serialization in RunRun. When Toei Animation planned to adapt her manga into an anime series, she reworked Sailor V and added four other superheroines.

In December 1991, Nakayoshi began serializing Sailor Moon, which became an instant hit. The success encouraged Takeuchi to work on both Sailor Moon and Sailor V from 1991 to 1997. However, RunRun was canceled with the November 1997 issue, and the planned Sailor V anime adaptation was canceled along with it. During that six-year period, she produced 60 chapters, which were collected in 18 volumes. The success of the manga led to a 200-episode anime adaptation, three animated films, numerous video games, and wide-ranging merchandising.

Tamaki, Jillian (1980 - )

Canadian-American illustrator and comic artist

Tamaki is best known for her work in The New York Times and The New Yorker in addition to the graphic novels Boundless, as well as Skim, This One Summer and Roaming written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki.

Skim (2008) is a critically acclaimed graphic novel illustrated by Jillian and written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki. It tells the story of a young high-school girl and touches on themes of friendship, suicide, sexuality, and identity.

This One Summer (2014) by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki is a graphic novel that centres on the experiences of close friends Rose and Windy, who are on the cusp of adolescence, during a summer holiday. This One Summer won a 2014 Ignatz Award, the 2015 Printz Honor, the Caldecott Honor, the 2015 Eisner Award, and the 2014 Governor General's Awards for Children's Literature — Illustration category.

In June 2017, Drawn & Quarterly published Tamaki's graphic novel Boundless, a collection of short stories. The book received rave reviews. A review in The Atlantic described the book as "an ambitious and eclectic set of tales, [that] focuses on the interior lives of unexpected subjects." Other reviews called Boundless a "picture-perfect" collection and as "a showcase for Tamaki's mercurial style." NPR and Publishers Weekly named Boundless as one of the best graphic novels of the year.

To learn more about Tamaki and her career and works, please follow the link https://www.jilliantamaki.com to her official website.

Tanemura, Arina 種村有菜 (1978 - )

Japanese mangaka, illustrator, character designer

Tanemura made her mangaka debut in 1996, publishing her one-shot story The Style of the Second Love in the magazine Ribon Original. Her first full length comic series, I.O.N, was published in Ribon magazine beginning in 1997. Tanemura's popularity grew during the late 1990s to mid-2000s with her series Phantom Thief Jeanne (selling more than five million copies), Full Moon o Sagashite, and The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross.

Since her debut as a mangaka, she has gone on to create music and illustrations for various properties. In 2010, Tanemura released an independent album titled "Junai Tenshi" under the name "Meguro Teikoku". The album featured ten songs based on her main female characters from her previous works and commemorated the 15th anniversary of her debut. She has also released a dojinshi under the same pen name. In 2015, Tanemura began working on the property Idolish7. She has developed character designs for the game Idolish7 in addition to providing illustrations and working on the associated manga.

To learn more about Tanemura and her career and works, please follow the link http://tanemuraarina.com to her official website

Tarr, Barbara "Babs" (1987 - )

American comic book artist and writer

Babs Tarr is best known for her work on DC Comics' Batgirl and her japanese-style illustrattions.

In 2014, Tarr's Japanese-influenced fan art caught the eye of DC Comics, and they hired her to draw a new Batgirl series. She later became the first long-term female artist to work on a Bat-Comic.

Early issues of Batgirl were sketched out by Cameron Stewart, and then passed over to Tarr to color, add details to, and enhance. Tarr's Sailor Moon Motorcycle Girls illustration inspired Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher to write two villains for Batgirl #36 based on Tarr's illustration.

In 2016, Tarr stopped working on Batgirl and moved on to work on Image Comics' Motor Crush series where she worked as an artist and writer.

Tarr's other clients have also been Marvel Comics, Hasbro, Disney, Boom! Comics, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, and Brand X.

To learn more about Tarr's independent apparel line, her pop-up brand, and more, please follow the link https://babsdraws.com to her official website.

Telgemeier, Raina (1977 - )

American cartoonist

Her works include the autobiographical webcomic Smile, which was published as a full-color middle grade graphic novel in February 2010, and the follow-up Sisters and the fiction graphic novel Drama, all of which have been on The New York Times Best Seller lists. She has also written and illustrated the graphic novels Ghosts and Guts as well as four graphic novels adapted from The Baby-Sitters Club stories by Ann M. Martin.

Her main breakthrough into published comics came from creating graphic novel adaptations of Baby-Sitters Club novels.[3] In a piece for Cosmopolitan, Telgemeier said that she met an editor from Scholastic at an art gallery party in 2004 who mentioned that Scholastic was thinking of setting up a graphic novel imprint. At that year's San Diego Comic-Con, Telgemeier met that editor's boss, who invited her to pitch an idea for Scholastic. After Telgemeier mentioned she had been a fan of Ann M. Martin's The Baby-Sitters Club series, they asked her to work up a graphic novel adaptation.

Scholastic, through its imprint Graphix, went on to publish four graphic novels in the series with the completed fourth Baby-Sitters Club novel released in 2008.

In February 2010, Telgemeier released a print graphic novel version of her webcomic Smile which was first featured on a New York Times bestseller list in 2011 and as of October 2020 it is still on the New York Times Bestseller List for Graphic Books and Manga.

If you are interested in Raina's work, please follow the link https://goraina.com/ to her official website.

Telnaes, Ann (1960 - )

Swedish-American editorial cartoonist

Ann Telnaes is an American animator and editorial cartoonist, known for her biting political cartoons. In 2001, Ann Telnaes became the second female cartoonist, after Signe Wilkinson, to receive a Pulitzer Prize, namely the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning and is the only female three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Between 2000 and 2005, Telnaes was one of six female cartoonists who contributed to the socially conscious and feminist gag comic Six Chix.

Telnaes was president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists during 2016–2017. She is a member of the advisory board of the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation that is based in Geneva and a former member of the board of directors of Cartoonists Rights Network International.

Before becoming an editorial cartoonist, she worked in the animation field and also as a show designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. She contributed to such films as The Brave Little Toaster and The Chipmunk Adventure. In 1993 she relocated to Washington, D.C. to be closer to the epicenter of American (and global) politics.

Telnaes' freelance cartoons were soon syndicated by North American/King Features and later Tribune Media Services. They have run in The Austin American-Statesman, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Newsday and, from 2008 to 2025, The Washington Post. Outside of the USA, her cartoons have appeared in The Courrier International and Le Monde. For the non-profit online news service Women's eNews, she has made a weekly drawing, which she dubs her "commentoons".

To learn about Ann Telnaes powerful career in political cartooning, please follow the link https://anntelnaes.com/ to her official website.

Terry, Hilda (1913-2006)

American cartoonist

Terry was the creator of the comic strip Teena (1944-1966) and the first woman to join the National Cartoonists Society (1950).

The society's initial constitution had a "male only" clause, which Hilda Terry challenged in 1949. After more than six months of debate and votes, the rule was changed, allowing three pioneering women (herself, Frances Dumm, and Barbara Shermund) to become members.

Tews, Alberta (1917-2000)

American comic book penciller, inker, writer and editor

Al Tews (as she was often credited) was one of the earliest women working in comic books during the Golden Age era of comics in the 1940s. She started as a freelance letterer for Timely Comics, during Vince Fago's tenure as Editor-in-Chief (1942-1945).

Tews (not to be confused with the "Tewks" who drew for Harwell/Comic Media in the 1950s) had a brief career in the comic book industry. Tews was credited for scripting the Miss Victory story in Captain Fearless Comics #2, September 1941. Her name appeared as Al Tews on the splash page. Miss Victory appeared in Captain Aero Comics, #12, June 1942. Tews used the pseudonym "Tuesday" on The Ragman story in Cat-Man Comics, #7, January 1943. Tews comic career ended when she joined the military in February of 1943.

Thomas, Dann (1952 - )

American comic book writer

Danette Maxx Couto, partner of Roy Thomas, was the co-writer and co-architect of DC’s “All-Star” titles of the 1980s, including All-Star Squadron, Infinity Inc and Young All-Stars, also co-writing most of Roy Thomas’ 50-issue run on Arak, Son of Thunder—not to mention Shazam: The New Beginning, Jonni Thunder, Last Days of the Justice Society, Avengers West Coast and Crimson Avenger.

Thompson, Jill (1966 - )

American comic book writer and artist

Thompson is best known for her work on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman characters and her own Scary Godmother series, she has worked on The Invisibles, Swamp Thing, and Wonder Woman as well.

Jill Thompson began her comics career working for such publishers as First Comics and Now Comics in the 1980s. She became the artist of DC Comics' Wonder Woman series in 1990. Her work on the "Chalk Drawings" story in Wonder Woman #46 (Sept. 1990) drew praise from writer George Pérez who stated "It was a good, quiet story, and I think Jill and I worked really well together on that one." Thompson illustrated the Brief Lives story arc in The Sandman issues #41–49, and the story "The Parliament of Rooks" in issue #40 (part of the Fables and Reflections collection). Within this tale she created the characters Li'l Death and Li'l Morpheus, childlike versions of two of the Endless based on classic comic characters Sugar and Spike.

Thompson created the comic book series Scary Godmother, originally published by Sirius Entertainment and later by Dark Horse Comics. The books spawned two television specials: Scary Godmother Halloween Spooktacular, which aired in foreign countries in 2003 before being picked up by Cartoon Network in 2004.

Thompson, Kelly (1976 - )

American novelist

Thompson is best known for the Jem and the Holograms comic with co-creator and artist Sophie Campbell, a modern re-imagining of the 1980s series of the same name, the Eisner-nominated Marvel comic Hawkeye with artist Leonardo Romero, which stars Kate Bishop and Captain Marvel featuring Carol Danvers with artist Carmen Carnero and colorist Tamra Bonvillain. Her other works include the novel The Girl Who Would Be King and comic series A-Force (vol. 2), West Coast Avengers (vol. 3), Jessica Jones (vol. 2), Mr. & Mrs. X (vol. 1), and Black Widow (vol. 8).

She is also the co-creator of the character Jeff the Land Shark and writer of his digital Infinity Comics series It's Jeff!.

Thompson has won three Eisner Awards – Best New Series for Black Widow (vol. 8) in 2021, Best Humor Publication for It's Jeff: The Jeff-Verse in 2024, and Best New Series for Absolute Wonder Woman in 2025.

Thompson, Maggie (1942 - )

American editor and article writer

Long-time editor of the now defunct comic book industry magazine Comic Buyer's Guide (1983-2013).

Thompson began working for Krause Publications as the editor of Movie Collector's World and Comics Buyer's Guide in 1983. With her husband Don, she wrote a miscellany of articles and comic-book stories; The Official Price Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy (1989, House of Collectibles); five years of Comics Buyer's Guide Annual (1992–1996, Krause Publications); Marvel Comics Checklist & Price Guide 1961-Present (1993, Krause Publications); and Comic-Book Superstars (1993, Krause Publications). With others, she produced the Comics Buyer's Guide Checklist & Price Guide and the Standard Catalog of Comic Books.

Under Maggie's editorial direction, Comics Buyer's Guide twice won the comics industry's Eisner Award for periodicals, among other awards. She was a recipient of the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award and was also the first recipient of the Friends of Lulu's Women of Distinction Award.

The Motor City Comic Con awarded the Don Thompson Award from 1992 to 1998. Originally known as the "Compuserve Comics and Animation Forum Award", the name was changed to the "Compuserve Comics and Animation Forum's Don Thompson Award" (or, simply, the "Thompson") after Maggie's husband, Don Thompson's, death in 1994.

Thorogood, Zoe (1998 - )

British comic book writer and artist

Thorogood is the author of The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott (2020, Avery Hill) and It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth (2022, Image Comics).

In addition to her work on independent comics, she also co-created the character of Spider-UK (Zarina Zahari) together with Ramzee for Marvel Comics and wrote multiple stories in anthologies published by DC Comics.

Thorogood has also had a successful run on Hack/Slash through 2022-to-2023, in which series creator Tim Seeley resumed writing. She was also the writer of the comic Life Is Strange: Forget-Me-Not, adapted from the video game Life Is Strange: True Colors, with art by Claudia Leonard and Andrea Izzo, published by Titan Comics in 2024.

Timmons, Anne (1955 - )

American comic book artist

Timmons has illustrated for a variety of publishers including Image Comics and Dark Horse and is possibly best known for her collaborative work with the creator/writer Trina Robbins illustrating the Lulu Award-winning GoGirl!, a comic book series that was originally published by Image Comics as a 5-issue mini series in 2000. The series was later collected in Trade Paperback by Dark Horse in 2002 with two more TPB releases, GoGirl! The Time Team (2004) and GoGirl! Robots Gone Wild! (2006).

Timmons other work includes the Eisner-nominated Dignifying Science and Pigling: A Cinderella Story (2009) for Lerner's Graphic Myths and Legends series.

She has also illustrated and painted covers for children's books and provided interior and cover art for regional and national magazines, including Wired, Portland Review, and Comic Book Artist. Anne's art also appears in the anthology 9-11: Artists Respond and is currently in the Library of Congress.

Tilburg, Magda Van (1954 - )

Dutch illustrator, graphic designer and comic creator

Tilburg may be best known for her work on children's books and for her 'Classica Signa' comic book adaptations of Ancient Greek and Latin literature. In Dutch comic history, Van Tilburg is additionally notable as the first female comic artist in the Netherlands to draw balloon comics. As the all around creator of her own comic books with speech balloons, Magda van Tilburg can rightfully be considered a pioneer of female cartooning in the Netherlands.

While in high school, Tilburg had difficulties learning texts from Latin and Ancient Greek literature. To make the material more comprehensible, she began making comics based on the stories, starting with a chapter from Homer's 'Odyssey'. Charmed by her efforts, her deputy headmaster made a small-format comic book out of it, marking the first incarnation of her comic book series 'Classica Signa'.

In the early 1970s, Van Tilburg moved on to study Classical Languages at the University of Amsterdam. During this period, she continued to make adaptations of ancient literature in the original language, including stories by Herodotus, Euripides, Homer, Ovidius and Plautus. During the 1970s, they were released in digest-sized black-and-white comic books by her then-husband, Frans Panholzer. Eight installments were made; four in Ancient Greek, four in Latin.

Much of her work is available online through her non-profit website Boox Alive https://booxalive.nl/.

Toboso, Yana 枢やな (1984 - )

Japanese mangaka

Also known by her other pen names Yanao Rock and Takaragi Yana, Toboso's most significant work is the manga series Black Butler (黒執事, Kuroshitsuji) a 2006 manga published in Square Enix's Monthly GFantasy magazine. In the same year, she also did art on Rust Blaster, six-chapter manga published by Square Enix in one volume. It tells the story of a human and a vampire who both attend Millennium Academy, a school for vampires and humans.

Her more current work of high praise has been on Disney: Twisted-Wonderland, a 2020 mobile game made by Aniplex in collaboration with Walt Disney Japan. The game centers around characters inspired by villains from Disney films and is described as a "villains academy adventure game" that has rhythm game elements and battles. The main concept, scenario, and character designs are by Yana Toboso. Yana Toboso is also the head of the creative team behind the game's main story and creates most of the current art for the game.

Her official site can be reached here https://yanatoboso.com/.

Toussaint, Dr. Ebony Allen

American Research Scientist and emergency nurse

Dr. Ebony Toussaint, RN-MSN, MPH, PhD is a Registered Nurse and Research Scientist. When she's not working as an emergency nurse, she is consulting on and curating several comic books while co-hosting the Comic Book Community award-winning Ororo Comics Podcast since July 2024.

Trotman, Spike C. (1978 - )

American Cartoonist and publisher

Trotman is known for creating the long-running web comic Templar, Arizona (2005), and for publishing the Smut Peddler (2014-2016) anthologies of what she describes as "lady centric porn".

She is the founder and owner of Iron Circus Comics (2007), a Chicago-based independent/alternative comics publisher that was described by the Chicago-Tribune as a pioneer in the industry for bringing queer-friendly fantasy, sci-fi, and erotica books to market and publishing underrepresented artists. Iron Circus comics is also Chicago's largest alternative comics and graphic novel publisher.

in 2012, Trotman revived the title Smut Peddler, first published by Johanna D. Carlson and Trisha L. Sebastian in 2003, created by women, primarilly for a female readership.

If you would like to learn more about Spike Trotman and Iron Circus Comics, you can visit the publisher's website at this link https://ironcircus.com.

Truesdale, Jazmin (1987 - )

American comic book company owner and creator

Truesdale is the founder and creator of AZA comics, and the CEO of AZA Entertainment.

AZA Comics is a superhero universe centered entirely around women which Truesdale founded in 2013. Most of its stories focus on a team of superheroines called "The Keepers", who spend their time planet hopping, getting into impossible shenanigans, and fighting evil villains in space.

Truesdale built The Keepers Universe and Aza Comics for women. A lot of research went into the company before launching. She polled women about their interest in comic books and in turn found out that women like the stories and superhero culture but preferred to read novels to comic books. Jazmin tailored her books to this preference intertwining classic comic book style illustrations in full novels. She adds that “female superheroes have traditionally been created for male consumption,” Aza is created for women by women.

For her website, you can head to the link https://azacomics.shop.

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