Tits & Clits 1972-1987
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A feminist answer to Zap, Tits & Clits quickly became an anthology showcase for other women cartoonists, featuring the work of Mary Fleener, Roberta Gregory, Krystine Kryttre, Lee Marrs, Carel Moiseiwitsch, Trina Robbins, Dori Seda, among others. Like other underground comix, Tits & Clits leaned into being lewd in order to satirize women's experiences with so-called sexual liberation. Featuring stories about birth control, abortion, menstruation, masturbation, and more, Tits & Clits featured intimate politics which occasionally clashed with contemporaneous feminist concepts about sex and sexuality. As Chevli put it: their work had something to offend everyone. (In 1973, conservative legal authorities in Orange County deemed their work pornographic and even threatened the two editors with arrest on obscenity charges.)
Now, for the first time in half a century, a new generation of readers will be shocked, entertained, enlightened, and scandalized by the bold satirical cartoonists that comprised the band of sisters in Tits & Clits. In addition to reprinting the seven-issue run of the Tits & Clits series, this collection also includes in their entirety two classic solo comics from 1972 written and drawn by Farmer and Chevli -- Abortion Eve and Pandora's Box. Also included is an introductory essay providing context to Tits & Clits' place in the history of women's cartooning by the book's editor, Samantha Meier.
Joyce Farmer
Joyce Farmer co-created the series Tits & Clits Comix (1972-1987), long beloved by comic lovers and more recently by feminists. She has also appeared in Wimmen's Comix (1975-1987), Wet Satin (1976-1978), ZeroZero (2000), What Right (2002), No Straight Lines (2012), Best American Comics (2012), Graphic Reproduction (2018), Drawing Power (2019), and Menopause (2020). Farmer documented her parents' aging in the graphic novel Special Exits (2010), for which she won Reuben and Inkpot awards and was nominated for the Eisner. That book has been translated into five languages. She lives in Laguna Beach, CA.
More by Joyce Farmer
Lyn Chevli
Lyn Chevli (1931-2016) was born Marilyn Keith in Milford, Connecticut. She (and her then-husband Dennis Madison) opened the bookstore Fahrenheit 451 in Laguna Beach in 1970. She subsequently partnered up with Joyce Farmer and formed Nanny Goat Productions. During her career as an underground cartoonist, Chevli romped in the surf with feminist Kate Millet, entertained Sergio Aragones, and partied with Gilbert Shelton, R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Harvey Kurtzman and others. Lyn was also a sculptor, first welding on the balcony of her Park Ave apartment in a bikini and later working with mixed media, mostly bones. Her novel, Alida: An Erotic Novel appeared in 1981. She contributed essays to Words in Our Pockets: The Feminist Writers Guild Handbook (1981) and Herotica (1988).
Roberta Gregory
Roberta Gregory is an American comic book writer and artist best known for the character Bitchy Bitch from her Fantagraphics Books series Naughty Bits. She was a prolific contributor to many influential feminist and underground anthologies, such as Wimmen's Comix and Gay Comix. She lives in La Conner, WA.
More by Roberta Gregory
Trina Robbins
Writer and feminist herstorian Trina Robbins wrote books, comics, and graphic novels for over 40 years. Her work includes The Brinkley Girls (Fantagraphics), Forbidden City: the Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs (Hampton Press), and the three-part YA series Chicagoland Detective Agency for Graphic Universe(TM).
More by Trina Robbins
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