 |
|
 |
Come celebrate the publication of
Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons
by Liza Donnelly
Published by Prometheus Books
Friday, September 30th, 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Map to MoCCA
Many of The New Yorker's women cartoonists who are profiled in this lively, illustrated history will be on hand to sign books and answer questions.There will be a short Q and A at around 9 pm. |
|
|
|
Donnelly looks at the rich history of women cartoonists who published in The New Yorker from 1925-2005. Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer contributed the Forward, as well as cartoonist and former New Yorker cartoon editor Lee Lorenz wrote the Preface for Donnelly's book.
It's no secret that most New Yorker readers flip through the magazine to look at the cartoons before they ever lay eyes on a word of the text. But what isn't generally known is that over the decades a growing core group of women artists has contributed to the witty, memorable cartoons that readers look forward to each week. Now, Liza Donnelly, herself a renowned cartoonist with The New Yorker for more than twenty years, has written this engaging, in-depth celebration of the rich history of women's humor and the women cartoonists who have graced the pages of the famous magazine from the Roaring Twenties to the present day.
In addition to being an anthology of funny, poignant, and entertaining cartoons, Funny Ladies offers a unique examination of twentieth-century American history as it relates to women. Donnelly explores how, using cartoons as mirrors on society, it is easy to trace women's roles in society by seeing how these women voiced their opinions and expressed their concerns on key social issues of the time. Early innovators in the twenties and thirties, like Helen Hokinson and Barbara Shermund, depicted women as working and independent, yet by the fifties they, and other cartoonists, returned to perpetuating existent stereotypes of women. However, beginning with the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and continuing to the present, female cartoonists, like Roz Chast and Liza Donnelly, are no longer confined to female subject matter but rather are able to show the world around them in their own human voice.
Donnelly also analyzes the evolution of The New Yorker and its cartoons, from the early illustrated jokes with talking heads to gags and slice-of-life cartoons. She discusses cartooning as a creative process and as part of the artists' work and lives, as well as the working relationships between cartoonists and editors.
Combining a wealth of never-before-published information from the New Yorker archives as well as personal interviews with contemporary female cartoonists and many of their male counterparts, Donnelly has created a charming narrative that beautifully portrays the unique artistic voices of the women who have contributed to this great magazine.
LIZA DONNELLY has been a cartoonist for The New Yorker for twenty-two years. When she started, she was one of only three women cartoonists being published by the magazine at that time. Donnelly has written and illustrated a series of children's books about dinosaurs and has edited four collections of cartoons, including Mothers and Daughters, and, with Michael Maslin, Fathers and Sons, Husbands and Wives, and Call Me When You Reach Nirvana. She has also contributed cartoons and illustrations to the New York Times, the Nation, Cosmopolitan, and many other national magazines.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
