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| Melinda Gebbie | |
|---|---|
 Melinda Gebbie atThe Amazing Meeting inLondon in 2010 | |
| Born | San Francisco,California |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Writer,Penciller,Inker |
Notable works | Lost Girls Cobweb |
Melinda Gebbie (born 1947)[1] is an Americancomics artist and writer, known for her participation in the underground comix movement. She is also known for creating the controversial workFresca Zizis and her contributions toWimmen's Comix, as well as her work with her husbandAlan Moore on the three-volume graphic novelLost Girls and theTomorrow Stories anthology series.
Melinda Gebbie was born in San Francisco. She became interested in comics in 1973, when she met writer/artistLee Marrs at a publishers' fair.[1] In 1984 Gebbie married Adam Cornford, a poet from California; their marriage was short-lived. Their marriage is believed to have been an inspiration for his poetry collectionAnimations.[citation needed] She marriedAlan Moore in 2007.
Melinda Gebbie contributed her first comic strip toWimmen's Comix #3, the inceptive all-women anthology published byLast Gasp. She wrote and drew short stories forWimmen's Comix and many other anthologies, includingTits & Clits Comix,Wet Satin, andAnarchy Comics. In 1977 she completed her own solo comic book,Fresca Zizis, which was later banned in Britain in 1985 for obscenity, and still is to this day.[2]
In 1984, she moved to England to work on the animated film adaptation ofRaymond Briggs'When the Wind Blows. Following this, she worked in a variety of illustration and office jobs and continued making short stories for anthologies such asStrip AIDS andHeartbreak Hotel. In the early 1990s, Alan Moore and Gebbie began collaborating onLost Girls, a story in which the female protagonists ofPeter and Wendy,Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, andThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz meet and share sexual stories and experiences. Moore wrote the story, and Gebbie illustrated it. The story was finished in 2006. Meanwhile, she and Moore createdCobweb, a mysterious heroine who appeared in twelve issues of the Moore-written anthologyTomorrow Stories between 1999 and 2002.
Hilary Chute claims that the underground comix movement was parallel to second-wave feminism because it gave women comic artists the ability to establish work that was political and freely explore and publish their artistic expression.[3] Autobiographical comics were popular among the underground comix industry due to groups of people being underrepresented in the mainstream comics industry. Although they were not completely autobiographical, comics likeTits & Clits,Wimmen's Comix, andTwisted Sisters contained many stores that touched on the comic artists' personal experiences. Their stories discussed topics that were not represented in the male-dominated mainstream and underground comix, because it addressed women's point of view on sex, masturbation, abuse, coming out, and menstruation.[3] Many of the male anthologies created in the underground kept women from collaborating with them, which prompted the creation of all-girl collaborated comics likeIt Ain't Me Babe andWimmen's Comix.[3] Although the series of publication was not consistent,Wimmen's Comix published 17 issues from 1972 to 1992.
In 1977, Melinda Gebbie produced her first solo work,Fresca Zizis. The title means "fresh cocks" in southern Italy dialect. During the 1980s, her comic book was banned in Britain for obscenity due to its pornographic illustrations.[4]Fresca Zizis is semi-autobiographical and includes Gebbie's past experiences with childhood abuse and sex, as well as portraits and stories of fellow cartoonist friends such asTrina Robbins andLee Marrs.[5] Gebbie describes that it "deals with the cruelty of lovers, the excesses of youth, and the states of depression and dreams - a warning and a comfort to those who venture out too deep."[6] When Gebbie was put on trial to defend the 'obscenity' in her work, she explained that the illustrations from the comic book come from her own experiences and argued that the people who put her through those experiences should be seen as obscene rather than her work, which is portrayed in her comic called 'Public Enemy' inAnarchy Comics issue #4.[5]
The graphic novelLost Girls was illustrated by Gebbie and written by her husband Alan Moore. It took Gebbie 16 years to illustrate the comic due to the layering techniques used to create the shimmering, children's book-like effect, which was done by her use of water colors and 12-14 layers of colored pencils.[5]Lost Girls follows the story of three young girls that come from popular fiction; Alice fromThrough the Looking Glass, Dorothy fromThe Wizard of Oz, and Wendy fromPeter and Wendy. The three female protagonists meet at an Austrian hotel and share with each other their past sexual fantasies and experiences in flashbacks, while also meeting others who are staying at the hotel and having sex with them. The stories of each female protagonist's sexual experience is integrated within their original narratives from popular fiction. Due to theCoroners and Justice Act, many comic artists thought the book would be banned in the UK because of its depictions of child pornography, however, it is still sold in the UK.[7]
| Early British works | |
|---|---|
| DC Comics | |
| Image Comics / Awesome Comics | |
| America's Best Comics | |
| Avatar Press | |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Comics based on Moore's prose | |
| Books | |
| Spoken word CDs | |
| Other | |
| Related people | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
