By Autumn Daughetee
During World War II a lot of America’s workforce had been drafted into the military. Women stepped up to keep the country’s factories and businesses running. What you may not know, is that many of the male artists drawing comic books in the early 1940s were of draft age. When they entered the military women artists stepped in to fill the gap.
Romona “Pat” Patenaude began to draw a number of popular comics in the early 1940s. Among them were The Green Falcon, The Vision, Blue Beetle, V-Man and Dr. Fung. Peggy Zangerle was another female artist who drew major comics in the 1940s. She drew Doc Savage and Red Dragon.
While Patenaude and Zangerle drew mainstream comics, most women artists of the era specialized in drawing female characters. Artist Janice Valleau drew Toni Gayle, a fashion model/detective, for Young King Cole comics. The Cadet, starring Kit Carter, was drawn by Nina Albright for Target Comics. Although the lead was male, The Cadet had mostly female readers who consistently asked for strong female characters, which Albright provided.
Other wartime heroines included Yankee Girl, drawn by Ann Brewster, and Blonde Bomber and Girl Commandos, drawn by Barbara Hall, 1941-1943, and Jill Elgin, 1942-1945. Girl Commandos featured an international team of women fighting Nazis. Hall also drew Black Cat, the first comic book superheroine.
Gladys Parker’s Mopsy featured a heroine who appeared dressed as a WAC, a WAVE, an Army nurse, a defense worker and a member of the Motor Corps during the war. Parker also took over the newspaper comic strip Flyin’ Jenny when its previous artist, Russell Keaton, joined the service in 1943.
These are just a few of the great women comic book artists who saw the comic book industry through World War II. Unfortunately for women artists, when the war was over men took back most of the action comic strips and women confined to drawing lighter fare if they continued in comics at all.
Kymera Press is trying to change all of that, giving women creators, writers and artists an expanded place in the comic book industry.
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