{"id":6941,"date":"2019-10-28T17:02:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T17:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=6941"},"modified":"2019-10-29T19:25:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T19:25:49","slug":"the-inking-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=6941","title":{"rendered":"The Inking Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

250 Years of Women Cartoon and Comic Artists in Britain, Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate, Myriad Editions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kathryn Lamb\/The Inking Woman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How many British female cartoonists can you name off the top\nof your head? My pathetic answer is one: the estimable Posy Simmonds, whereas\nany number of male names come surging in, from Rowlandson to Steve Bell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when I spotted The\nInking Woman<\/em> in my local bookshop it went straight to the top of the list\nof possible birthday presents (for myself!) and I got lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is based on the exhibition of the same name at the\nCartoon Museum in 2017 \u2013 an event that, shamefully, seems to have passed the\ndames by. The publication is far more than simply a catalogue of the images\nexhibited. After a range of images and well-researched articles that give a\nhistorical overview taking us from the satire of the eighteenth century to\npostcard art, via the representation of the women\u2019s suffrage campaign, the book\ndivides into two sections: Women in the Press\u2019 and \u2018The Graphic Novel\u2019, with,\nagain, short essays on the diversity of cultures within these two strands, such\nas feminist publishing and zines. So you can read and learn \u2013 or you can simply\nbrowse hundreds of images that elicit anything from a belly laugh to a wry\nsmile to genuine anger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
‘Vauxhall Demi-rep’ Mary Darly\/The Inking Woman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The earliest cartoonist featured is Mary Darly, who married a printer in 1759, threw herself into the business, and soon opened her own print shop round the corner from his. Punters greatly appreciated her images of Augusta, Princess of Wales, and the pleasure she took in the \u2018broomstick\u2019 of Prime Minister George Bute, who was rumoured to be her lover. Others found them less appealing and the vicious attacks she suffered made her turn to satirising types rather than individuals, capitalising on the fashionable enthusiasm for caricatures, inspired by Grand Tourists\u2019 encounters with this genre in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we might not automatically consider suffragette imagery as belonging to the category of cartoons, their blend of text and illustration justifies their inclusion, as do their \u2018punchline\u2019 tactics, aiming to startle and disrupt to get their political message across, as in Emily Harding Andrews\u2019s poster, published by the Artists\u2019 Suffrage League in 1908.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Emily Harding Andrews\/The Inking Woman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With a very different focus, postcard art served the\nenormous commercial market for this form of communication at a time when there\nwere five postal deliveries a day. Mabel Lucie Atwell, whom I remember more for\nher illustrations of children\u2019s books, developed an unmistakeable \u2013 and highly\nsentimental \u2013 style that went on to be popularised through all manner of merchandise\n(crockery, dolls, nursery equipment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking through the \u2018Women in the Press\u2019 section I realised I had come across several of the artists, but sadly their names had not stuck, among them Jacky Fleming, and Annie Lawson with her stick figures that animate both men\u2019s and women\u2019s weaknesses. Many of the images satirise men\u2019s supposed incompetence (such as Jackie Smith\u2019s immaculately detailed image of the classic bachelor pad complete with three weeks\u2019 washing up and boots on the table), but equally there are those that are just a good gag, no matter what you identify as, like Kathryn Lamb\u2019s at the top of the review. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is just the quickest of glimpses into this illuminating and entertaining book, and for once the claim ‘hours of fun can be had\u2019 is no exaggeration, Christmas is coming, so this is definitely one recommendation for your list. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . classic bachelor pad: three weeks’ washing up and boots on the table . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,68,70,58,67,55],"tags":[236,237,189],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6941"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6972,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6941\/revisions\/6972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}