In February, Nicole Hollander's long-standing comic strip, Sylvia, was axed by the Chicago Tribune, leaving the cartoonist without a place in her hometown paper. The strip is still carried by 30-odd newspapers, but Hollander decided to take the irascible and sharp-tongued Sylvia into another dimension. This year, she hired social-media consultant Alicia Eler to work with her on crafting a web presence for her character. Hollander, famously liberal on social issues like gay marriage, updates a new blog [ www.BadGirlChats.com ] with commentary and archival cartoons. She recently published The Sylvia Chronicles: 30 Years of Graphic Misbehavior from Reagan to Obama [ The New Press, $19.95, 144 pages ] In a recent interview, she spoke about Sylvia's new life, the future of cartooning, and what it means to be a Chicago feminist.
Windy City Times: What would you say is different about working on the blog as opposed to producing cartoons on deadline?
Nicole Hollander: I just find it more of an immediate connection. I like the style of writing because I can just write and write and write and cut, but you don't have to cut the way you do for a strip because a strip has to be much shorter and much punchier. And I can draw it out and have a couple of jokes within the same piece and I like that.
I have no problem coming up with ideas because I respond to something that's happening in the news right I can change my mind. If I want to talk about Sarah Palin and why I think she has no idea in the world about what mama grizzlies are really like—then I can do that immediately. And then I can go into my archives and find a cartoon about her. It might not have to do with what I'm writing about but it has to do with her and with my different characters' responses to her. So it's just incredibly more flexible.
WCT: You're very much a Chicago cartoonist—and Sylvia is very much a Chicago feminist. Is that a reflection of your own upbringing in this city and the influence of the women in your family?
Nicole Hollander: It's what I know and it's my style of talking. I think we speak alike although, because she's a cartoon, she's much faster than I am. I'm a kind of slower formulator of things. But what I think of her as a Chicagoan is that she's very straightforward and she is sarcastic and ironic in the way that Chicagoans are. And she is a Chicago feminist because I think of Midwestern feminists as thinking about jobs. They're very practical. And my family was always looking for a new job. My father, because he'd always get fired [ when ] he lost his temper. My mother, just because she would get bored. So that's part of my growing up. On the west coast, I couldn't talk to people because they were spiritual and I wasn't; I was just practical and when I was younger I was part of a class action suit against the Sun-Times having segregated classified ads. We won that and I was so thrilled to be part of that.
WCT: Is cartooning for the papers a dying art? And is the future one where people like have a presence online as much or more than in the papers?
Nicole Hollander: I don't think that newspapers are dying immediately. I think it's a long, slow death. … they're slowly becoming less of a venue and of course, with new cartoonists there was always tremendous competition to get into newspapers. And when there are fewer [ papers ] , then what do you do? I think some people go into standup, into comedy, into acting. But I think there are a lot of online comic cartoon communities and they have their subscribers and people who are interested in following them. The question for all of us is, how do we get more attention?
WCT: Is cartooning more difficult for women to get into?
Nicole Hollander: …there has always been a dearth of women in comics. It was and is controlled by men. Even if a woman is the features editor…There is an unofficial group of guys who decide who gets in the paper. Now, I have to say that without the help of male editors, I would not have gotten in. But really, I think it's a harder road for women, much, much harder. I think that for these editors, one woman is really quite enough, thank you very much. As for women's humor—I think that we have a different experience growing up and living, period. And so a lot of what we write about has to do with that particular situation and our responses to it. When we were growing up, we understood male humor because that was the world. It's like speaking two languages. So I think that women are not afraid of male humor, they laugh at it. I think it's a mistake to exclude us.
WCT: Who are the upcoming cartoonists and where do you see their work heading?
Nicole Hollander: I think they went into the graphic novels. Alison Bechdel had a fabulous strip, which had a range of characters that was extraordinary and she followed them every week. Well, she went on to write a graphic novel. That's what she had to do. Linda Barry is an amazing, brilliant artist and she writes books. Not in the newspaper.
WCT: Does writing for the web change your style in any way?
Nicole Hollander: Not the drawing, because I have to do a certain kind of thing for the syndication. And my writing may be informed by what I'm doing on the blog. But I can't really analyze it. I can generate more ideas and use them in two different places. That's helpful. It gets you going. And since I'm doing something every day for the blog, there isn't a time when I can really stop thinking about it. Which is sort of fun. Otherwise you can procrastinate forever. Maybe not forever, but for a very long time.
