Nicole Hollander
Encyclopedia
Nicole Hollander is an American cartoonist and writer. Her daily comic strip
Sylvia
is syndicated to newspapers nationally by Tribune Media Services
and also can be seen on her blog, BadGirl Chats.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hollander was the daughter of Shirley Mazur Garrison and Henry Garrison, a labor activist and member of the carpenters union. Growing up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, she was educated in Chicago public schools. She earned a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 1960 and an M.F.A. from Boston University
in 1966. Her marriage to Hungarian sociologist Paul Hollander ended in a 1962 divorce.
During the 1970s, she was the graphic designer of a feminist publication, The Spokeswoman, where she had the opportunity to transform the newsletter into a monthly magazine. While designing pages, she occasionally added her own political illustrations. "Around 1978," she created a comic strip, The Feminist Funnies, later introducing the character who became Sylvia. Selections from The Feminist Funnies appeared as a calendar, Witches, Pigs and Fairy Godmothers: The 1978 Feminist Funnies Appointment Calendar, and in her 1979 book, I'm in Training to Be Tall and Blonde. The book's success led Field Enterprises
to distribute Sylvia to newspapers as a daily comic strip
starting in 1981. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hollander drew comics for Mother Jones
magazine. Many of these did not include the Sylvia character.
Hollander has donated the archive of her work to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
at Ohio State University
. A number of her drawings are in the collection of the Library of Congress
. She is a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2011 offering a course in writing the graphic novel
. She has led workshops and taught at Ohio State University
, Columbia College Chicago
, the Ox-Bow School of Art, Chicago's Printers Row Lit Fest, and for the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education. Her frequent appearances as a public speaker since 2001 have occurred at The New School
, Loyola University Chicago
, DePaul University
, the Art Institute of Chicago
, Enoch Pratt Free Library
, the Library of Congress
, Stagebridge, and elsewhere. In 2009, Hollander curated a show of women's humor, And You Think This Is Funny?, for Chicago's Woman Made Gallery; the show included the work of some 50 women artists. The gallery's simultaneous ten-year retrospective exhibit of Hollander's work was titled It's Enough to Make a Cat Laugh.
In 2005, Hollander appeared in a one-woman show, Return to Lust, at Pegasus Players in Chicago. A second show, Plastic Surgery or a Real Good Haircut, opened in 2008 at Chicago's Live Bait Theatre. In these performances, she described her experiences as an aging woman dealing with physical vanity, sexual desire and an overlong birthday-party guest list.
, and The Sylvia Chronicles: 30 Years of Graphic Misbehavior from Reagan to Obama (2010), with an introduction by Jules Feiffer
. She is the author of Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial (2007) and the illustrator of many books by other writers, including children's books by Robie Harris
and books in praise of cats by Allia Zobel.
With Skip Morrow and Ron Wolin, Hollander edited Drawn Together: Relationships Lampooned, Harpooned, & Cartooned (Crown, 1983) for the Cartoonists Guild. Her work was included in the satirical pro-choice comic book Choices (Angry Isis Press, 1990) alongside such fellow contributors as Howard Cruse
, Jules Feiffer
, Bill Griffith, Cathy Guisewite
, Bill Koeb
, Lee Marrs
, Nina Paley
and Garry Trudeau
. Gina Barreca
and Nicole Hollander collaborated on An ABC of Vice: An Insatiable Woman's Guide (Bibliopola Press, 2003), which combines Barreca's text and Hollander's cartoons. Hollander's cartoons are featured on the covers and in the text of Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch (Hysteria, 1994) and The Inner Bitch: Guide to Men, Relationships, Dating, Etc. (Hysteria, 1999), by Elizabeth Hilts.
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
Sylvia
Sylvia (comic strip)
Sylvia is a long-running comic strip by American cartoonist Nicole Hollander that offers commentary on political, social and cultural topics, and on cats, primarily in the voice of its title character, Sylvia...
is syndicated to newspapers nationally by Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...
and also can be seen on her blog, BadGirl Chats.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hollander was the daughter of Shirley Mazur Garrison and Henry Garrison, a labor activist and member of the carpenters union. Growing up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, she was educated in Chicago public schools. She earned a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
in 1960 and an M.F.A. from Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
in 1966. Her marriage to Hungarian sociologist Paul Hollander ended in a 1962 divorce.
During the 1970s, she was the graphic designer of a feminist publication, The Spokeswoman, where she had the opportunity to transform the newsletter into a monthly magazine. While designing pages, she occasionally added her own political illustrations. "Around 1978," she created a comic strip, The Feminist Funnies, later introducing the character who became Sylvia. Selections from The Feminist Funnies appeared as a calendar, Witches, Pigs and Fairy Godmothers: The 1978 Feminist Funnies Appointment Calendar, and in her 1979 book, I'm in Training to Be Tall and Blonde. The book's success led Field Enterprises
Field Enterprises
Field Enterprises was a private holding company founded on August 31, 1944, by Marshall Field III and others whose main asset was the Chicago Sun. That same year the company acquired the book publishers Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books....
to distribute Sylvia to newspapers as a daily comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
starting in 1981. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hollander drew comics for Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
magazine. Many of these did not include the Sylvia character.
Hollander has donated the archive of her work to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, a research library of American comic art, is affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio...
at Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
. A number of her drawings are in the collection of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. She is a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2011 offering a course in writing the graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
. She has led workshops and taught at Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
, Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago is one of the largest art colleges in the United States with nearly 12,000 students pursuing degrees within 120 undergraduate and graduate programs...
, the Ox-Bow School of Art, Chicago's Printers Row Lit Fest, and for the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education. Her frequent appearances as a public speaker since 2001 have occurred at The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
, DePaul University
DePaul University
DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...
, the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, Enoch Pratt Free Library
Enoch Pratt Free Library
The Enoch Pratt Free Library, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of the oldest free public libraries in the United States. Established in 1882 after a grant from philanthropist Enoch Pratt, the library now includes twenty-two branches in Baltimore, plus the Central Library...
, the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, Stagebridge, and elsewhere. In 2009, Hollander curated a show of women's humor, And You Think This Is Funny?, for Chicago's Woman Made Gallery; the show included the work of some 50 women artists. The gallery's simultaneous ten-year retrospective exhibit of Hollander's work was titled It's Enough to Make a Cat Laugh.
In 2005, Hollander appeared in a one-woman show, Return to Lust, at Pegasus Players in Chicago. A second show, Plastic Surgery or a Real Good Haircut, opened in 2008 at Chicago's Live Bait Theatre. In these performances, she described her experiences as an aging woman dealing with physical vanity, sexual desire and an overlong birthday-party guest list.
Books
Hollander has published 19 Sylvia collections, including The Whole Enchilada (1982), Tales from the Planet Sylvia (1990), with an introduction by Barbara EhrenreichBarbara Ehrenreich
-Early life:Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Howes Alexander in Butte, Montana, which she describes as then being "a bustling, brawling, blue collar mining town."...
, and The Sylvia Chronicles: 30 Years of Graphic Misbehavior from Reagan to Obama (2010), with an introduction by Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
. She is the author of Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial (2007) and the illustrator of many books by other writers, including children's books by Robie Harris
Robie Harris
Robie H. Harris is an author, specializing in books for children. She was born in Buffalo, New York, and currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts...
and books in praise of cats by Allia Zobel.
With Skip Morrow and Ron Wolin, Hollander edited Drawn Together: Relationships Lampooned, Harpooned, & Cartooned (Crown, 1983) for the Cartoonists Guild. Her work was included in the satirical pro-choice comic book Choices (Angry Isis Press, 1990) alongside such fellow contributors as Howard Cruse
Howard Cruse
Howard Cruse is an American alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay themes in his comics.Cruse was raised in Springville, Alabama, the son of a preacher and a homemaker. His earliest published cartoons were in The Baptist Student when he was in high school. His work later appeared...
, Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
, Bill Griffith, Cathy Guisewite
Cathy Guisewite
Cathy Lee Guisewite is the cartoonist who created the comic strip Cathy, about a career woman facing the issues and challenges of eating, work, relationships, and being a mother. As Cathy put it in one of her strips, "The four basic guilt groups."Born in Dayton, Ohio, Guisewite grew up in Midland,...
, Bill Koeb
Bill Koeb
Bill Koeb is an American illustrator, painter, and comic-book artist whose work includes the Marvel Comics' series Clive Barker's Hellraiser and the Vertigo miniseries Faultlines...
, Lee Marrs
Lee Marrs
Lee Marrs is an American comic book writer, animator, and one of the first women underground comix creators. She is best known for her comic book series, The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp, which lasted from 1973 to 1978.-Underground comics:Marrs was a frequent contributor to...
, Nina Paley
Nina Paley
Nina Paley is an Americancartoonist, animator and free culture activist.She directed the animated feature film Sita Sings the Blues. She was the artist and often the writer of comic strips Nina's Adventures and Fluff, but most of her recent work has been in animation...
and Garry Trudeau
Garry Trudeau
Garretson Beekman "Garry" Trudeau is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip.-Background and education:...
. Gina Barreca
Gina Barreca
Regina "Gina" Barreca is an American academic and humorist. She is professor of English literature and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut. Her latest book, It's Not That I'm Bitter, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World, was published by...
and Nicole Hollander collaborated on An ABC of Vice: An Insatiable Woman's Guide (Bibliopola Press, 2003), which combines Barreca's text and Hollander's cartoons. Hollander's cartoons are featured on the covers and in the text of Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch (Hysteria, 1994) and The Inner Bitch: Guide to Men, Relationships, Dating, Etc. (Hysteria, 1999), by Elizabeth Hilts.
Awards
Hollander's work has formed the basis for several theatrical musicals, including Female Problems and Sylvia's Real Good Advice, winner of a Joseph Jefferson Award in 1991. Other awards include the Wonder Woman Foundation Award for Women of Achievement over 40 (1983) and Yale's Chubb Fellowship for Public Service (1985).Critical commentary
- "Nicole Hollander has been one of our nation's leading satirists. This means she is in the business of telling the truth and making it funny... She is a radical social critic who is certain that nothing works, and so what?" (Jules FeifferJules FeifferJules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
, Introduction to The Sylvia Chronicles) - "What working commentator can confront Sylvia's range of subject matter—from macro-economics to stretch marks, from foreign policy to kitty litter—without gnawing anxiously on his or her writing instrument?... her supernatural insight into matters of public policy, her ability to see, as with x-ray vision, through the stupefying drone of media rhetoric." (Barbara EhrenreichBarbara Ehrenreich-Early life:Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Howes Alexander in Butte, Montana, which she describes as then being "a bustling, brawling, blue collar mining town."...
, Introduction to Tales from the Planet Sylvia) - "There are precious few women cartoonists, and Nicole is the only one with a daily strip who presents the believable struggles of women in contemporary society." (Sara ParetskySara ParetskySara Paretsky is a modern American author of detective fiction.-Life and career:Paretsky was born in Ames, Iowa and raised in Kansas, graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in political science. She did community service work on the south side of Chicago in 1966 and returned in...
) - "Many [respondents to a reader survey] who voted for Mr. Boffo did so simply to vote against Sylvia. Several claimed they would have voted for a blank space. Their message: Get rid of Sylvia." (Providence Journal)
- "Shrewd and cynical and drily, wittily, outrageously attitudinous." (Katha PollittKatha PollittKatha Pollitt is an American feminist poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry...
) - "The unofficial cartoonist laureate of women’s studies programs around the country... Her cartoons allow us to track the shifting landscape of right-versus-left politics that brought us to where we are now." (Audrey Bilger)
- "Sylvia...is the mother who lets you swear and talk about sex. She is the friend who advises you to hold the emerald eyeshadow until after dark. She is the sister who appreciates vasectomy humor." (Susan Swartz)
- "The comic strip equivalent of TV's Hazel." (G.J.Angelo)
- "Verbal switchblades." (Laura Mansnerus)
- "The toughest woman in America." (The Village Voice, quoted on the back cover of The Sylvia Chronicles)
- "Sylvia, the best bathtub philosopher since Marat." (Hedy Weiss)
- "The most outspokenly feminist cartoonist in mainstream publication.” (Paula Chin)
- "Sometimes I understand Sylvia, and it's beginning to scare me." (Carol Andrew)