Gladys Parker, A Life in Comics. A Passion for Fashion

By Trina Robbins. Hardcover, 

Hardcover, 256 pages, B&W and Colour, 2023

2023 Eisner Award Nominee

Cartoonist Gladys Parker was unique in comics. As with Frida Kahlo, it was impossible to tell where her art left off and its creator began. Parker mixed fashion and comics and created classic characters that mimicked her sense of fashion. In fact, Parker was an exact double for her ink-and-paper creation, Mopsy.

Tarpe Mills and Dale Messick both dressed to kill and included paper dolls featuring their heroines’ chic 1940s wardrobes. Tarpe Mills and Lily Renee were fashion models before they drew comics. But only Gladys Parker (and one other)* was a fashion designer with a successful line of clothing while at the same time drawing an equally successful comic strip. Parker’s dresses bearing the Gladys Parker label were sold at her own New York shop and at high-end department stores across the country – and she also found the time to costume Hollywood movies and the beauties that starred in them!

Who better to chronicle the story of Gladys Parker than comics herstorian Trina Robbins, who in the 1960s designed clothes for hippies and rock stars out of her East Village boutique, while drawing underground comix?