Trina Robbins
Historian
and writer Trina Robbins has been writing graphic novels, comics and
books for over thirty years. Her subjects have ranged from Wonder Woman
and the Powerpuff Girls to her own teenage superheroine, GoGirl!, and
from women cartoonists and superheroines to women who kill. She
has written over a dozen educational graphic novels for three different
publishers, provided English language rewrites for shojo manga graphic
novels, and lectured on comics and graphic novels throughout the United
States and Europe. She lives in San Francisco, in a moldering
102-year-old house with her cats, shoes, and books.
WHEN WOMEN FLEW: Flying Women in the Comics of World War ll and in Real Life
A talk and slide show by Trina Robbins (begins at noon)
In
comics, the 1940s was a time when women flew, not soaring magically
into the air like superheroes, though there were enough of those, too,
but behind the cockpits of their own planes, fighting the Axis. Even
before 1941, when Jaqueline Cochran sent out a call to about 3,000
women flyers, asking if they would be interested in joining a woman's
air corps, Jane Martin, the Flying Nurse from Wings Comics, was
piloting her own plane and fighting Nazis. And this was before America
had even entered the war! After Pearl Harbor, Jane was joined in
the comics by Flying Jenny, Sky Girl, and even Valkyrie, a German air
ace who defected from the Nazis to fight for Democracy. Meanwhile in
the real world, the WAFS (Women's Auxiliary Flying Squadron) and later
the WASPS (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) was formed for real-life
heroines to ferry military aircraft from the factories to the bases.
During four brief but glorious years, women flew, both on the comics
pages and in the skies of our real world. In December, 1944, with the
war winding down, the American military, which had never approved of
flying women, disbanded the WASPS. The flying women of comics did not
fare much better. By the end of the 1940s, like their human
counterparts, the brief career of the comic book flygirls ended for
good, and like their human sisters, they received no pensions.
Books by Trina Robbins:
- Barbie’s Garden
- Califia, Queen of California
- Catswalk
- A Century of Women Cartoonists
- Choices
- Eternally Bad: Goddesses With Attitude
- From Girls to Grrrlz:
- Great Women Superheroines
- A History of Women in Comics
- Matchbook Cover Art
- Nell Brinkly and the New Woman in the Early 20th Century
- Silver Metal Lover
- StripAids USA
- Tender Murderers: Women Who Kill
- Travel and Vacation Advertising Cuts
- Wild Irish Roses
- Women and the Comics