Trina Robbins (1938-2024)

Artist, editor, and author Trina Robbins, 85, died April 10, 2024 of a stroke in San Francisco CA. Though best known as a legendary feminist comics writer and artist, she was also a science fiction fan and occasional SF writer, with stories including “Lines from a Diary” (1992) and “Innana: Witchwoman” (2011). She wrote and illustrated a comics adaptation of Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover in 1985, and was guest of honor at feminist SF convention WisCon in 1992.

Trina Perlson was born August 17, 1938 in New York City. She married Paul Jay Robbins in 1962, divorcing in 1966, and had a daughter with cartoonist Kim Deitch. She became romantically involved with artist Steve Leialoha in 1977, and was with him for the remainder of her life.

In the ’50s and ’60s she was involved in SF fandom, with illustrations appearing in fanzines. She was active in the music scene as well, becoming friends with Jim Morrison, Joni Mitchell, and other prominent figures. She was a fashion designer and ran a boutique in the East Village called Broccoli, creating clothes for Mama Cass, David Crosby, and other musicians.

Robbins moved from New York to San Francisco in 1970, where she became involved with underground comics. She curated It Ain’t Me Babe, a collection of comics by women, and the book was a huge success, especially by underground comics standards. That anthology led to a serial, Wimmen’s Comix, which ran for 20 years, and was collected as a lavish omnibus in 2016.

She co-created comics character Vampirella in 1969, and began working on Wonder Woman comics in 1986, with her groundbreaking run collected as The Legend of Wonder Woman (written by Kurt Busiek). She also collaborated with Colleen Doran on graphic novel Wonder Woman: The Once and Future Story (1998). In 1990, she edited Choices: A Pro-Choice Benefit Comic Anthology for the National Organization for Women. She cofounded Friends of Lulu, which promoted women in comics. Robbins was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013 for her contributions to the comics industry.

She was also a scholar, and author of A Century of Women Cartoonists (1993), The Great Women Superheroes (1997), From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines (1999), and The Great Women Cartoonists (2001). Her memoir Last Girl Standing appeared in 2017.

Robbins is survived by her partner, daughter, and granddaughter.