Society of Illustrators + Strand Present: Caitlin McGurk + Françoise Mouly

This event is co-presented with the Society of Illustrators. For more information, please visit their website at societyillustrators.org.

Join us for an in-person event with the Curator of Comics and Cartoon Art at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Caitlin McGurk for a discussion of her new book Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund. Joining Caitlin in conversation is Françoise Mouly, TOON Books publisher and the New Yorker art editor. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator. Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by November 12th to request.

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This gorgeous art book celebrates the work and legacy of Barbara Shermund, one of the first female cartoonists for humor and lifestyle magazines in the United States, including The New Yorker and Esquire.

Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins doubles as an official biography and coffee table art collection honoring the life and art of pioneering cartoonist Barbara Shermund, an unheralded early master of magazine cartooning whose career spanned the heyday of American magazines from the 1920s–1960s. Her sharp wit and loose style boldly tapped the zeitgeist of first-wave feminism with vivid characters that were alive and astute. Shermund’s women spoke their minds about sex, marriage, and society; smoked cigarettes and drank; and poked fun at everything in an era when it was not common to see young women doing so. Shermund left behind a body of work that was ahead of its time and remains insightful, witty, relevant, and contemporary.

As one of the first women cartoonists to work for The New Yorker the year of its launch in 1925, she created nine covers and more than 600 cartoons for the magazine, in addition to countless spot illustrations, giving the nascent publication its unique visual brand. Shermund later became a mainstay at Esquire; contributed to Life, Colliers, Judge, and more; had a syndicated newspaper cartoon published by King Features; and illustrated a variety of books. In 1950, Shermund was among the first three women to be accepted as a member of the male-dominated National Cartoonist Society. A compelling facet of Shermund’s work is her frequent nods to queer audiences, which appeared in her work more than that of any of her contemporary New Yorker cartoonists. There are indications in her personal files that she also may have been queer, including love letters and other personal archives.

Readers will discover Shermund’s unique and vibrant life and art and gain an understanding of how women’s place in the history of cartooning has been controlled and sublimated by greater societal and cultural allowances. Through close readings, archival research, reproductions of original art, correspondence and photographs, this volume uncovers and celebrates a trailblazing female magazine cartoonist, and rightfully places her in the canon of cartoon art history.

Founded in 1901, the is America’s longest-standing nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of illustration. Located on the Upper East Side, SI’s Museum of Illustration advances our mission to promote the art and appreciation of illustration and its history and evolving nature through exhibitions and educational programs.

Photo credit: Brooke LaValley

Caitlin McGurk is the Curator of Comics and Cartoon Art at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and Associate Professor at The Ohio State University. She leads the education and outreach efforts at the library, organizes community events, curates exhibitions, works with artists, and mentors students who are inspired to study the rich history of comics. McGurk’s scholarship and exhibitions center around the work of women in comics, alternative and underground comics, and early American comic strips. Her recent exhibitions include Ladies First: A Century of Women’s Innovations in Comics and Cartoon Art; and Man Saves Comics: Bill Blackbeard’s Treasure of 20th Century Newspapers, which was featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Her writing has appeared in publications including Journal of Lesbian Studies; Slate; The Comics Journal; Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society; and IDW Publishing’s Library of American Comics Essentials. Caitlin has also worked for The Center for Cartoon Studies’ Schulz Library, Marvel Comics, and serves on the council for the annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival. Her new book, Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund, will be published by Fantagraphics Books in 2024.

Photo credit: Sarah Shatz

Françoise Mouly has been the art editor at The New Yorker since 1993, where she has overseen more than fifteen hundred covers. Many of these have been named cover of the year by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME). She’s the publisher, designer and editorial director of TOON Books, an imprint specializing in children’s comics, which she founded in 2008. In 1978, she co-founded RAW Books & Graphics with Art Spiegelman, her husband and frequent collaborator. From 1980 to 1992, she published and co-edited RAW magazine, the groundbreaking comics magazine which launched Sue Coe, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, Lynda Barry, Richard McGuire, Chris Ware, and so many others and first published Spiegelman’s Maus. In 2017, Ms. Mouly began publishing RESIST!, a collection of comics and graphics primarily by women, co edited with her daughter, writer Nadja Spiegelman. In 2015, Ms. Mouly was the recipient of the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award for her work in Education. She received France’s highest honor, the Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur, in 2011 and she was inducted in the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2021.

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