In October we attended the Lakes Festival in the charming town of Kendal, in England’s beautiful Lakes district. Because we were so late in contacting the festival to say we’d like to attend, all the rooms in the hotel were already taken by the other guests, so we were put up by the honorable Clare Feeney-Johnson, councilwoman and ex-mayor of Kendal, much better than staying in some hotel. Clare was a wonderful hostess and her husband did his best to help us figure out our dreadful problems with our iPhone service, meaning, there WAS no service and our new iPhones simply didn’t work. Later we found out that iphones don’t work in Europe until you’ve had them for 90 days,
something we were not told when we got them. So we basically used them for taking pictures during our trip — at least we put them to some use!
From Kendal, after a two-day whirl in Oxford, we wound up in London, where I shared a talk with Hannah Berry at Orbital Comics. I’m delighted to know Hannah, a funny bubbly kind of gal whose excellent but absolutely creepy comics are just the
opposite. How can such dark stuff come out of such a perky person? See for yourself at
http://www.hannahberry.co.uk. And here we are. Hannah is to my right and the ladies to my left are Jessica Kemp and Corrine Pearlman.

Who else did I meet at the festival? Antonella Caputo is a comics writer who lives in Rome. There are tons of women drawing comics these days, (And brava to that!) but it was nice to meet a woman who WRITES comics, like I do.
What to look forward to: Bryan and Mary Talbot’s new graphic novel, “Sally Heathcote, Suffragette,” done with brilliant cartoonist Kate Charlesworth this time. (Bryan and Mary’s last collaboration was “Dotter of her Father’s Eye,” which I loved and
which won all sorts of awards.) “Sally Heathcote” won’t be out until Spring, but Bryan, Mary and Kate gave a great presentation at the Lakes Festival, and I’m counting the days till I can read it.
DEPARTMENT OF FUNNY FOTOS:
In November we attended the wedding celebration of my dear friend (and publisher) Brian Anderson, and his life partner Preston Nesbitt, and wouldn’t you know it, there was a photo room with funny hats’n’props. (Is this the latest thing? It seems wherever I go these days, it’s Funny Foto time!) So here’s Steve as a fireman, and I finally get to be Catwoman (or is it Batwoman?).
What’s next? I’ll be giving a presentation on my brand new, final and definitive history of women cartoonists, “Pretty in Ink,” at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum (That’s at 655 Mission Street, (415) CAR-Toon) on December 19th, at 6 p.m. Here’s what Fantagraphics (with a little tweaking by Yours Truly) has to say about the book:
With the 1896 publication of Rose O’Neill’s comic strip The Old Subscriber Calls, in Truth Magazine, American women entered the field of comics, and they never left it. But you might not know that reading most of the comics histories out there. Trina
Robbins has spent the last thirty years recording the accomplishments of a century of women cartoonists, and her presentation at the Cartoon Art Museum will give you a taste of Pretty in Ink, her ultimate book, a revised, updated and rewritten history of women cartoonists, with some startling new discoveries (such as a Native American woman cartoonist from the 1940s who was also a Corporal in the women’s army) In the
pages of Pretty in Ink you’ll find new photos and correspondence from cartoonists Ethel Hays and Edwina Dumm, and the true story of Golden Age comic book star Lily Renee, as intriguing as the comics she drew. Although the comics profession was
dominated by men, there were far more women working in the profession throughout the 20th century than other histories indicate, and they have flourished in the 21st. Trina is
the preeminent historian of women comic artists; forget her previous histories: Pretty in Ink is her most comprehensive volume to date.
And here you can get a glimpse into the interior of Pretty in Ink, as a phantom
hand turns the pages: