The More Voices, The Better

Very Funny Ladies shines light on diversity and equality in humor

Things are starting to ramp up for my forthcoming book, Very Funny Ladies! To celebrate the amazing women in this book, I have scheduled a lot of events, virtual and in person, for this month, March and April. It’s been fun reaching out to bookstores and venues, and most people have been very receptive. I also love creating panels of different cartoonists, each panel I am moderating will have a different group of women participating, it will be so great.

In case you aren’t aware, this book is a history of the women cartoonists of The New Yorker, from 1925-2021. It is an updated edition of my 2005 book, Funny Ladies, with two new chapters, because there are so many more women drawing for the magazine now! I interviewed a lot of them over zoom during the pandemic, it was fascinating. Also exciting is that the Editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, and Cartoon Editor Emma Allen, wrote the foreword for the new book.

What I always like to point out is that by gathering women as I have done for the book, it is not to say we are in some way similar in how we draw or how we see the world. We are not similar, that’s not the point. We are cartoonists who happen to identify as women. Our gender may indeed inform our creativity, it probably does to one degree or another, how can it not? The reason why I wrote the book in 2005 and then again in 2021 is to shine a light on the fact that we cartoonists who identify as women have been doing this for a hundred years. And we still are, in large numbers. And there are now non-binary and transgender cartoonists.

The more creative perspectives we get on life, the better.

For the launch, I will start with a virutal event on the actual pub day, Feb 15th, at a wonderful indie bookstore, Oblong Books, at 7pm EST. I will be talking with Roz Chast, Kim Warp and Kendra Allenby, all seasoned cartoonists at the magazine and very funny people. We are going to have a lot of laughs, and I will show some of their cartoons, too.

Please come join us on zoom. If you can’t this time, I will let you know about the other events! Also if you want a signed personalized book, click here.

To REGISTER, follow this link.