Ladies Making Comics

Fantastic news still dripping in from San Diego!

After reading the Trina Robbins interview on Salon, I sent her an e-mail to catch up and ask what the status of the “possible” collection of Lily Renée’s Fiction House material, and she confirmed that YES, IDW is going forward with it!  (It was also supposedly announced at one of the IDW panels at SDCC, but no one has reported on it :( )

No idea when it’s coming out yet, but I honestly can’t tell you what this means to me.  I just discovered “Renée’s” (real name: Lily Renée Phillips) work recently, in the course of building this blog and the wiki, but she fast became one of my favorite artists.  Her work was stunningly beautiful, and better than many of her Golden Age contemporaries and later (male) comic “superstars”.  Just browse what a Google Image Search brings up and be in awe.  Her art is the second most impressive thing about her, after her earth-shattering girlhood— as the child of two wealthy Viennese Jews, she and her family were separated when she was sent to England after the Anschluss, and it was over a year and a half before she got word that they had made it to New York.  Always a skilled artist, her mother suggested she earn money drawing comics after seeing a wanted ad in the newspaper.  Renée had never seen a comic before in her life before she started working for Fiction House— creating the beautiful work that will finally be collected for a modern audience to see.

The best part about all of this is that Ms. Phillips is still with us, a refined, classy lady of 86, living near Madison Avenue in Manhattan, amused by all the attention she is now getting over a career she kept secret until she had grandchildren.  Trina Robbins and Anne Timmons have created a graphic biography of her which will be published in November, and Trina has told me that she is trying to see if Ms. Phillips would be willing to do a signing with them in New York.  If she says yes, prepare to find me a puddle of Jello at whatever venue they end up at.

And rest assured, this will not be the last you hear from me on the progress of this collection!