Female comics creators

Although traditionally female comics artists have long been a minority in the industry, they have made notable impact since its very beginning, and more and more female artists gain recognition, along with the maturing of the medium.

In certain places, including Japan and South Korea, women creators have shaken up the traditional market to attain widespread mainstream success.

Women creators have worked in every genre, from superheroes to romance, westerns to war, crime to horror. Their modes of expression and subjects of discussion have expanded as women's role in society has changed. The pressure of market forces may result in more stereotypical depictions of women and their concerns, or they may be shut out by male colleagues due to their frankness and thus resort to alternative publishing routes. However, many still have found mainstream and/or underground success telling the stories they want to tell.

In the early 20th century, when the US newspaper comics market was in its infancy, William Randolph Hearst brought the artist Nell Brinkley over from the competing Denver Post, and although not doing comics herself, her romantic and glamorous imagery became an inspiration to a generation of female comics artists.

Another style popular around the time was cute comics with doll-like round-cheeked children. In 1909, Rose O'Neill created The Kewpies, a series continuing for decades and widely used in various marketing purposes.

Another cartoonist, Grace Wiederseim (also known as Grace Drayton and Grace Gebbie), worked in a similar vein and, from the 1910s until the 1930s, created a multitude of series with cherubic children bearing names such as Toodles, Dimples, Dolly Dingle, and Dottie Darling. She was also the creator of the "Campbell kids", which Campbell Soup employed for marketing purposes up until the 1930s. Her sister, Margaret G Hays was also a frequent collaborator with her on several of her works.

Edwina Dumm created a long-lasting series in 1918, Cap Stubbs and Tippie, about a boy and a dog, although the frisky dog soon took over the strip as its most popular character. The series ran until the 1960s.

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