| Carol Tyler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1951-11-20)November 20, 1951 (age 74) |
| Nationality | American |
| Area | Cartoonist |
| Pseudonym | C. Tyler[1] |
Notable works | Soldier's Heart,Fab4 Mania,Late Bloomer |
| Awards | Master Cartoonist Award, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Gold Medal Excellence Award, Society of Illustrators Inkpot Award, Comicon international Cartoonist Studio Prize, Slate.com Nemo Award, Toonseum Pittsburgh PA Dori Seda Memorial Award for Best New Female Cartoonist, 1988[2] |
Carol Tyler (born November 20, 1951) is an American painter, educator, comedian, and eleven-timeEisner Award-nominated cartoonist known for herautobiographical comics. She has received multiple honors for her work including the Cartoonist Studio Prize, the Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award, and was declared a Master Cartoonist at the 2016Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Festival at theBilly Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
Born and raised inChicago, Illinois, she attended Catholic schools, K -12, andMiddle Tennessee State University where she achieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.[3] Tyler became interested in theunderground comics movement while pursuing a master's degree in painting atSyracuse University in the early 1980s.[1] This interest brought her to the underground comics hotbed ofSan Francisco.[4]
Her first comics publication was the 1987 story "Uncovered Property", inWeirdo.[5] Tyler's shortslice-of-life stories and her distinctive artwork brought her critical attention as one of a growing number of female artists shaping the direction of underground/alternative comics in North America in the 1980s; she appeared in the influential feminist anthologiesWimmen's Comix andTwisted Sisters.[6][7][8] Her first solo book,The Job Thing, was published in 1993. She produced short comics for publications includingLA Weekly,Pulse (Tower Records),Strip AIDS,Heck, andZero Zero.
Tyler also performed live comedy with the Rick & Ruby Patio Show at LA'sThe Comedy Store, theGreat American Music Hall in San Francisco, and the Clunie Center in Sacramento.[3]
Her second solo work,Late Bloomer, was published byFantagraphics in 2005.[9] It's a career highlight collection including both previously published and new material. In his foreword,Robert Crumb says, "She's tops in my book. One of the best artists alive and working in the comics medium. Her work has the extremely rare quality of authentic HEART. Hers are the only comics that ever brought me to the verge of tears."[10]
Tyler's most recent completed project was "Fab4 Mania" about the author's Beatles obsession when she was 13. The book is a slice-of-life, and leads up to her seeing them perform live at Chicago's Comiskey Park in 1965. (Fantagraphics, 2018). Before that, in 2015, theYou'll Never Know trilogy was combined in to one volume called "Soldier's Heart: The Campaign to Understand My WWII Veteran Father, A Daughter's Memoir. "Soldier's Heart/You'll Never Know" is about her search for the truth about what happened to her father duringWorld War II, and also about the damage his war had on her future relationships. TheNew York Times called it " a vivid, affecting, eccentrically stylish frame built around a terrible silence".[11]Book One: A Good & Decent Man was released in May 2009.Book Two: Collateral Damage was released in July 2010.[12] The final installment of the trilogy,Book Three: Soldier's Heart, was released in October 2012.
Tyler taught a comics class at theUniversity of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning from 2006 - 2019. Her primary focus was teaching students the methods and techniques of comic creation. In teaching the history of comics "Tyler can pull out almost the entire history of comics in this country, everything from1930s classics to1950s comic magazines teaching aspects of African American history (regardingHarriet Tubman andCrispus Attucks) to an original of the first issue of the iconoclasticMad Magazine."[13] She has also brought her current book theme, military service, into the classroom.[14][15][16]
Another cartooning endeavor was a series of one-page stories called "Tomatoes" forCincinnati magazine. Based upon her experiences of growing tomatoes and friendships in the heart of the city, "Tomatoes" appears monthly on the publication's inside back page.[17]
Tyler was a 2016Civitella Ranieri residency fellow. She is also a Residency artist through the Arts Learning Program with theOhio Arts Council.[18]
In 2016, Tyler spoke at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Art Museum on "... the unique challenges of autobiographical storytelling set in real time with real characters."[19] She also spoke atThe Society of Illustrators.[20]
DAAP Galleries staged a major one-womanexhibit of Tyler's work which included "...written entries of her ascent into illustration, accompanied by artworks and sketches from throughout her career," and "...eclectic 3-D creations...A flashing, multicolored light inside of a star rotates along one wall. An interactive piece called the "Ego-Meter" asks viewers to pull a string that raises a wooden face up the meter. A creepy baby doll spins around on a stick...an excellent job of showcasing an inspirational artist and professor at UC".[21]
In 2017 she gave atalk about her process of creatingSoldier's Heart at the Library of Congress, titled "Comics to a 'T".
In 2020, Carol Tyler's work was chosen to be a part of the Society of Illustrators Museum exhibit "Women in Comics: Looking Forward, Looking Back".[22]
From November 5–20, 2021, "Shaping Grief: Carol Tyler's Mourning Mind" an interactive art experience was featured at the DSGN Collective in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was composed of comics, repurposed objects, murals, mobiles, and a giant mourning bonnet which served as a gateway through which people would walk to observe the exhibit. The artwork and bonnet are part of her upcoming book "The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of My Grief".[23][24]
Carol Tyler and her late husband Justin Green are the subject of the documentary filmMarried to Comics, which premiered in 2023 at the Small Press Expo event feature at the AFI Silver Theater and Culture Center.[25]
Tyler lives in Cincinnati. She has lived there with her husband from 1997 until his death, the cartoonistJustin Green (1945–2022).[26] Before that, they were in Sacramento. They met and lived in San Francisco in the early 1980s, married in October 1984, and have a child, Julia Green.[4] Her brothers are Olympic bobsledders Joe Tyler and Jim Tyler.
In 2016, Carol Tyler received the Cartoonist Studio Prize from theSlate Book Review.[27] With fellow recipientSergio Aragones, she accepted the Master Cartoonist Award fromCartoon Crossroads Columbus.[28]
You'll Never Know, Book I: A Good & Decent Man,Book II: Collateral Damage, andBook III: Soldier's Heart have been nominated for many awards in the comics industry, including elevenEisner Award nominations for Best writer/artist non-fiction, Best graphic album, Best Lettering and Best Painter/Multimedia Artist, 2 Harvey Awards, and 2 Ignatz Awards. The series was named as a finalist for the 2011Los Angeles Times Book Prize.[29] In 2016, "A Soldier's Heart" brought Tyler another nomination for anLA Times Book Prize.[30] It also received an Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award.[31]
In 2010, it was named one of "The Most Memorable Comics & Graphic Novels of 2010" by NPR's Glen Weldon.[32] It ranked #5 on Rob Clough's Top 50 Books of 2010 at High-Low.[33] It also made the "Best of 2010" lists at Comic Book Resources,[34] Robot 6, and Politics and Prose.[35]Best American Comics listed it as a "notable comic" in 2011.[36]
Tyler's piece "The Hannah Story", published inDrawn & Quarterly, was nominated for a 1995Eisner Award and is on the Fantagraphics list of Top 100 Comics of the Twentieth Century.[37]
In 1988, Tyler was awarded the inauguralDori Seda Memorial Award for Best New Female Cartoonist fromLast Gasp.[38]
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