Nicole Hollander
Cartoonist Nicole Hollander used her comics to poke fun at misogyny and prove that feminists could be funny. Hollander began as graphic designer for the feminist newsletter The Spokeswoman, which she helped grow into a full magazine. Her political cartoons in the magazine grew into a comic strip, The Feminist Funnies. One character from the strip spun off into a new weekly comic strip, Sylvia, which was syndicated by newspapers around the country starting in 1981. The strip’s eponymous heroine was strong and self-assured, unleashing her biting wit against misogynists and sexists of all stripes. Hollander also drew cartoons for Mother Jones magazine. She has taught at a number of colleges and is currently on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she teaches a course on the graphic novel. Her work is included in the Library of Congress cartoon collection and The Cartoon Research Library at Ohio State University and has been gathered into several books. Sylvia was officially retired in 2011. The following year Hollander began work on a graphic memoir, depicting the story of her life in cartoon format; We Ate Wonder Bread: A Memoir of Growing Up on the West Side of Chicago, was published in 2018.