The Cartoons Of Helen Hokinson

One of the artists featured in my documentary, WOMEN LAUGHING

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be doing additional posts, outside of my regular daily ones, to share with you the wonderful work of New Yorker women cartoonists, past and present.

Today, I am sharing some ( really a mere fraction!) of the work of Helen Hokinson. Many cartoons below are in my new documentary, Women Laughing, but I added some that didn’t make the cut for a variety of reasons. I really wanted to put all of them in!

Hokinson was born in Mendota, Illinois and traveled to New York City in the early 1920’s to become a cartoonist. The comic weekly, The New Yorker magazine, didn’t exist yet (started in 1925), but comics and illustration were extremely popular at that time in most publications. I always think about how brave Hokinson was to tell her parents that she was going to the big city to pursue her dream; not a common thing to do in those days for a young woman from a small town.

Helen Hokinson’s first drawing, of a woman waving goodbye to loved ones on an ocean liner, speaks volumes in just her line. It tells a story without words.

Another like the one above is below. I almost feel it could be autobiographical because Hokinson was classically trained as an artist. She chose to become a cartoonist and I am so glad she did. Her line instinctively has humor in it.

When she used captions for her work, she chronicled the life of the “new woman,” women navigating new cultural rules the Roaring Twenties.

She drew double page spreads about life in and out of the city. The New Yorker often sent her out on assignment to chronicle life in the big city.

Hats were a constant subject for her.

Hokinson did a lot of cartoons about museums.

The women she drew were adventurous, curious, kind and funny. We could—and still can, even 100 years later— relate to them.

Hokinson started at The New Yorker in 1925, her early drawings were about young women in the city. But as the years went on, she began drawing cartoons whose protagonists were matronly, heavy-set women. The public adored these characters; they became her signature.

As the 1940’s came to a close, Hokinson was at the peak of her career, she was a famous New Yorker cartoonist, beloved by many. But she felt her matrons were becoming misunderstood, that people were laughing at them. She wanted readers to laugh with them, not at them. So she embarked on a speaking tour—she was very shy, so it must have been a big decision. She sought to explain her ladies to the public.

She died tragically in a plane crash in 1949.

Helen Hokinson is one of the artists we feature in our documentary, Women Laughing. Filming is completed, and now are in the middle of a kickstarter seeking support for post-production costs so that we can bring the stories of the women cartoonists out into the world.

Here is the link for more information and to become a part of helping us complete the documentary!

Thank you for being here!