Joyce Farmer
{{Short description|American underground comix cartoonist}}
{{Infobox comics creator
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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1938}}
| birth_place = Los Angeles, California
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| nationality = American
| cartoonist = y
| write = y
| art = y
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| notable works = Tits & Clits Comix
Special Exits
| awards = National Cartoonists Society's Graphic Novel Award, 2011
Inkpot Award, 2011[https://www.comic-con.org/awards/inkpot Inkpot Award]
| website =
}}
Joyce Farmer (born 1938 in Los Angeles, California)Vankin, Deborah. [http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/11/28/r-crumb-joyce-farmers-special-exits-on-par-with-maus/ "R. Crumb: Joyce Farmer’s Special Exits on par with Maus,"] "Hero Complex," Los Angeles Times (November 28, 2010). is an American underground comix cartoonist. She was a participant in the underground comix movement. With Lyn Chevli, she created the feminist anthology comic book series Tits & Clits Comix in 1972.
Biography
Joyce Farmer was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1938. She briefly attended Art Center School (now ArtCenter College of Design) in Pasadena in the 1950s before dropping out.{{Cite web |last=Dueben |first=Alex |date=2010-12-29 |title=Farmer on "Special Exits" |url=https://www.cbr.com/farmer-on-special-exits/ |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=CBR |language=en}} After living in Phoenix, Arizona with her first husband,{{Cite web |last=Vanesian |first=Kathleen |title=A New Times Art Critic Reconnects with Underground Comic Icon Joyce Farmer, the Person Who First Inspired Her to Be One |url=https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/a-new-times-art-critic-reconnects-with-underground-comic-icon-joyce-farmer-the-person-who-first-inspired-her-to-be-one-6447443 |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=Phoenix New Times |language=en}} in 1965, Farmer moved to Laguna Beach, California with her son. She later attended the University of California, Irvine, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in the Classics.
In 1972, Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevli founded Nanny Goat Productions, a feminist publishing company which they established in order to publish their own underground comix, Tits & Clits Comix.{{Cite web |title=The Forgotten History of Outrageous Women-Made Comic "Tits & Clits" |url=https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/the-forgotten-history-of-outrageous-women-made-comic-tits-clits |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=Bitch Media |language=en}} Nanny Goat Productions published seven issues of Tits & Clits Comix in total, in addition to another underground comic book titled Pandoras Box (1973).
In June 1973, following the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision on abortion, Farmer and Chevli published Abortion Eve, an educational comic begun the year before about women's reproductive rights.{{Cite web |date=2016-06-08 |title=The Comic Book That Guided Women Through Abortion Months After 'Roe' |url=https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2016/06/08/comic-book-abortion-after-roe/ |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=Rewire News Group |language=en-US}} Drawing upon their experiences as birth control and pregnancy counselors at Laguna's Free Clinic, the single-issue comic book presented the stories of five women – all of them named variations on Eve, each in differing circumstances – going through obtaining an abortion. Farmer later shared about her personal experience with abortion, which partially inspired the comic.{{Cite web |first=Joyce |last=Farmer |date=2011-05-12 |title=Joyce Farmer: Day Four |url=https://www.tcj.com/joyce-farmer-day-four/ |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=The Comics Journal |language=en-US}}
Some of Farmer's earliest cartooning work is signed Joyce Sutton, causing people to believe this is her birth name,{{Cite news |last=Kois |first=Dan |date=March 6, 2011 |title="Inexhaustible Imagination and a Graphic Look at Declining Years." |newspaper=The Washington Post}} rather than her husband’s last name. She changed her legal name back to Farmer in the mid-1970s.
In 1973, Farmer and Chevli were forced to stop producing underground comix due to the arrest of local booksellers from Fahrenheit 451 Books on obscenity charges for selling underground comix.{{Cite web |last=Meier |first=Sam |title=The Bust: Orange County's War on Underground Comix – Comic Book Legal Defense Fund |date=15 September 2016 |url=https://cbldf.org/2016/09/the-bust-orange-countys-war-on-underground-comix/ |access-date=2023-01-28 |language=en-US}} They resumed publishing Tits & Clits Comix in 1976. While their first few comics (Tits & Clits Comix α, Pandoras Box, Abortion Eve, Tits & Clits #2, and Tits & Clits #3) were created solely by Farmer and Chevli, beginning with issue #4 the women of Nanny Goat Productions invited other contributors to their comic, including Trina Robbins, Lee Marrs, Sharon Rudahl, Shelby Sampson, and others. Farmer and Chevli acted as editors for the series.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Farmer also contributed to the other all-woman underground comix anthology, Wimmen's Comix, in addition to other underground comix such as Wet Satin.[http://lambiek.net/artists/f/farmer_joyce.htm Farmer entry], Lambie Comiclopedia. Retrieved on 2011-2-27. She later acted as the editor for Wimmen's Comix #10: The Internationally Politically Incorrect Issue (1985).{{Cite web |title=Wimmen's Comix; International Politically Incorrect Issue. No. 10 by Joyce Farmer on Alta Glamour |url=https://www.alta-glamour.com/pages/books/83754/joyce-farmer/wimmens-comix-international-politically-incorrect-issue |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=Alta Glamour |language=en-US}}
In 1980, Chevli sold her share of Nanny Goat Productions to Farmer. Farmer published one final issue of Tits & Clits Comix, Tits & Clits #7 with co-editor Mary Fleener, in 1987, before ceasing publishing underground comix.{{Cite web |title=Tits & Clits 1972-1987 |url=https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/tits-clits-1972-1987 |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=Fantagraphics |language=en}}
Since she never made much money from underground comics, Farmer struggled financially occasionally through the 1970s and 1980s. Farmer worked as a bail bondsman in addition to her cartooning, even opening her own bail bonds business in the early 1980s.{{Cite web |first=Joyce |last=Farmer |date=2011-05-13 |title=Joyce Farmer: Day Five |url=https://www.tcj.com/joyce-farmer-day-five/ |access-date=2023-01-28 |website=The Comics Journal |language=en-US}}
Farmer began to care of her aging father and stepmother in the 1990s.Gallagher, Paul. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-gallagher/post_1451_b_798231.html "Such Small Increments: Joyce Farmer's Special Exits a Moving and Unique Graphic Novel on Old Age and Death,"] Huffington Post (December 17, 2010). She started documenting in comics form the sad and sometimes humorous episodes of her parents' final years,{{cite news
| last = Wolk
| first = Douglas
| title = Comics
| date = 2010-12-03
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/books/review/Wolk-t.html
| access-date = 2011-02-27
| work=The New York Times Sunday Book Review
}} sending samples to former fellow underground cartoonist Robert Crumb. Crumb convinced her to finish the book. Fantagraphics published this graphic memoir in 2010 under the title Special Exits. Because of Farmer's macular degeneration, Special Exits took her 13 years to complete.{{Cite web |website=cbldf |title=She Changed Comics: Golden Age, Silver Age, & Undergrounds – Comic Book Legal Defense Fund |date=11 March 2016 |url=https://cbldf.org/2016/03/she-changed-comics-golden-age-silver-age-undergrounds/ |access-date=2023-01-28 |language=en-US}}
Farmer's work has also appeared in anthologies such as ZeroZero (2000), What Right (2002), No Straight Lines (2012), Best American Comics (2012), Graphic Reproduction (2018), Drawing Power (2019),{{Cite book |url=https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/drawing-power_9781419736193/ |title=Drawing Power Women's Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival |isbn=978-1-4197-3619-3 |language=en |last1=Noomin |first1=Diane |date=17 September 2019 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams }} and Menopause (2020).
In 2023, Fantagraphics issued a collection of all of Nanny Goat Productions' comic books, Tits & Clits 1972-1987.
Awards
In 2011, Special Exits won the National Cartoonists Society's Graphic Novel Award.Spurgeon, Tom. [http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/xxxsdfd_xcsdfeadf_wins_reuben_your_2011_division_awards_winners/ "Richard Thompson Wins Reuben; 2011 NCS Division Awards Winners], Comics Reporter (May 28, 2011).
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
=Reviews=
- [http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60699-381-1 Publishers Weekly review, August 16, 2010]
= Interviews =
- [http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/special_exits_an_interview_with_joyce_farmer/ Dangerous Minds]
{{Underground comix cartoonists}}
{{Feminist art movement in the United States}}
{{Inkpot Award 2010s}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farmer, Joyce}}
Category:American women illustrators
Category:American feminist artists
Category:American female comics artists
Category:American female comics writers