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Susan E. Kirtley

Professor of English and Director of Comics Studies at Portland State University, author of the Eisner-winning "Lynda Barry: Girlhood Through the Looking Glass" and co-author of "Women in Comics" (2026).

Oct 6, 2026

19:24
So you paired The Patriot with The Working Woman, so can you talk a little bit about The Working Woman and, and that sort of archetype and, and stuff?
19:33
Mm-hmm.
19:33
Absolutely.
19:34
And I think the, The Working Woman for me is such a fascinating chapter, uh, because you can look at these older comics, and you look at these newer comics, and you look at the comics across different, uh, cultures and regions, and a lot of the, um, challenges of women in the working world remain the same.
19:53
So, um, you know, The Working Woman, we, we were able to dig into the idea, you know, of, of how are women in the working world represented through comics.
20:03
Uh, and there's some really early ones.
20:05
You know, we have, um, you know, we have Polly and Her Pals in 1912.

11 MINS LATER

31:26
Uh, yeah, so the fashionista, can you talk a little bit about her, too, and sort of how, how she plays a- an important role in comics and comic history?

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