Carol Tyler
Encyclopedia
Carol Tyler aka C. Tyler (born 1951 in Chicago, Illinois) is an award-winning American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 painter, educator, comedian, and Eisner nominated cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 known for her autobiographical stories.

Background

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Tyler became interested in the underground comics movement while pursuing a master's degree in painting at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 in the early 1980s. This interest brought her to San Francisco, where she met and later had a child with the cartoonist Justin Green.

Her first comics publication was the 1987 story "Uncovered Property", in Weirdo. Tyler's short slice-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 anthologies Wimmen's Comix
Wimmen's Comix
Wimmen's Comix, later titled Wimmin's Comix, was an influential all-female underground comics anthology published from 1972 to 1992. Though it covered a wide range of genre and subject matter, Wimmen's Comix focused more than other anthologies of the time on feminist concerns, homosexuality, sex...

and Twisted Sisters
Twisted Sisters
Twisted Sisters may refer to:* Unnamed Hariri Pontarini Architects project in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada* An underground comic series by Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Diane Noomin...

. Her first solo book, The Job Thing, was published in 1993. Studs Terkel called it ". . . a beaut!"

Previously known mostly for black-and-white drawings, the change in technology in the 1990s allowed for her to incorporate more color into her comics. She produced short comics for publications including Zero Zero, Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...

, LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...

and Pulse!.

Also in the 90s, Tyler (under the alias Marion Linthead) performed comedy with the Rick & Ruby Patio Show at LA’s Comedy Store.

Her second solo work Late Bloomer, with an introduction by Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...

, was published by Fantagraphics in 2005. It's a career highlight collection including both previously published and new material. In his foreword, R. 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."

Ms. Tyler's current (2009) project is a trilogy. You'll Never Know is her search for the truth about what happened to her father during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and also about the damage his war had on her future relationships. 'Book I: A Good & Decent Man' was released in May 2009. Book II: Collateral Damage is due out in July, 2010.

Tyler lives in Cincinnati and teaches a very lively and popular class on comics, graphic novels & sequential art at the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
The University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, commonly referred to as DAAP, is a college of the University of Cincinnati. Located in the university's main campus in Cincinnati, Ohio, DAAP is consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious design schools in the...

. She has brought her current book theme, military service, into the classroom.

Ms. Tyler is also a Residency artist in the Arts Learning Program with the Ohio Arts Council.

Awards

You'll Never Know, Book I has been nominated for many award in the comics industry, including two Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...

 nominations (Best writer/artist non-fiction and Best Painter/Multimedia Artist). http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml

In 1995, Tyler's piece "The Hannah Story", published in Drawn and Quarterly, was nominated for an Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...

.

In 1988, Tyler was awarded the inaugural Dori Seda Memorial Award
Dori Seda
Dorthea Antonette "Dori" Seda was an artist best known for her underground comix work of the 1980s. Her comics combined exaggerated fantasy and ribald humor with documentation of her life in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.- Biography :Seda was originally a painter and ceramics...

 for Best New Female Cartoonist of the Decade from Last Gasp
Last Gasp
Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...

.

Solo projects

  • You'll Never Know: Book II: “Collateral Damage”. Fantagraphics, 2010.
  • You'll Never Know: Book I: “A Good and Decent Man”. Fantagraphics, 2009.
  • Late Bloomer. Fantagraphics Books, 2005. ISBN 1-56097-664-0
  • The Job Thing. Fantagraphics Books, 1993. ISBN 1-56097-111-8

Contributed to

  • Weirdo
  • Wimmen's Comix
  • Street Music
  • Zero Zero
  • Mineshaft Magazine
    Mineshaft Magazine
    Mineshaft is an independent international art magazine launched in 1999 by Everett Rand and Gioia Palmieri in Guilford, Vermont. Initially focusing on poetry and literature, the magazine began to publish comics after Robert Crumb became a contributor in 2000...

  • Prime Cuts
  • LA Weekly
  • Drawn and Quarterly
  • Tower Records’ Pulse!

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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