March is Women’s History Month, and we like to take this time to not only acknowledge all the great fictional women who inspire us, but the real women who have contributed their own legacy to this great collaborative work which forms the DC Universe. Last year, we paid tribute to the women—too few, too rare—who wrote for DC Comics over its first fifty years of history. This year, we’re looking to the artists.

In the “Pre-Crisis” years where the DCU took its shape, it wasn’t unheard of for women to assist artists with inking or coloring. But as rare as it was to find women writing comics, it was even more uncommon that they were afforded the primary duty of pencil work. We found 39 women last year who wrote for DC Comics in its fifty first years of operation. This year, looking to penciling credits, we found only fourteen. It’s possible, even likely, that there are some ghost artists, rarely if ever credited, who might bring that number up. But as far as well or even moderately known pencilers go from this period, these are the only women at DC that haven’t been lost to history. For the few that there are, we believe it’s important to know their names.
 

The Early Cartoonists

In the earliest days of National Allied Publications when founder Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson was still working out what the medium would look like, comic books weren’t yet dominated by the “assembly line” approach taken today. Most features were written and drawn by the same cartoonist, adapting the style of work developed for newspaper strips to this new format. Because of that lineage, the first women to draw for DC also happen to be the first women to write for DC. Emma C. McKean, Connie Naar, Serene Summerfield and Merna Gamble respectively created “Sara Lou Sunshine,” “Junior Funsters,” the science fiction feature “Stratosphere Special,” and a serialized adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities between 1935 and 1936. These women were there for the birthing phase of what would become DC Comics in their earliest titles: New Fun, More Fun and New Comics. As the comics medium coalesced around male talent, they would also be the last women among DC’s pencilers known to the public until 1969.

That is, with one notable exception.
 

Ramona Fradon

Over a period of more than thirty years, only one woman was credited as a penciler for DC Comics, and that was the legendary, indomitable Ramona Fradon. Co-creator of Metamorpho, Aqualad and the Global Guardians, Fradon maintained an awe-inspiring career in comic book artistry until 2022, working in the industry until the age of 97. In addition to her many monumental achievements in the comics field as a whole, Fradon codified the aesthetic of Aquaman in the Golden Age and illustrated nearly every issue of the 1970s Super Friends tie-in comics. Truly one of a kind. And yet, her solitude for such an enormous length of DC history also demonstrates how few opportunities women had to find a place in comic book art.
 

Jeffrey Catherine Jones

The second woman to do penciling work on enduring characters for DC would earn that place in history post facto. An accomplished painter, Jeffrey Catherine Jones picked up some interior penciling work for DC Comics in 1969, working on a two-part Nightmaster story in Showcase #83-84 with Bernie Wrightson and Mike Kaluta, a Rose and Thorn story with Dick Giordano in 1971’s Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #116, and a horror anthology story that same year for The Witching Hour #14. It was only in 1998 that Jones would publicly transition, identifying as a woman. After coming out, she drew one final story for DC in 1998’s Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #2.
 

Liz Berube

As we mentioned last year, public records on DC’s romance titles are, at best, spotty. What we do know is that a great deal of the line between 1969 and 1974 was illustrated by Liz Berube, who simply credited herself at the time as “Elizabeth.” Extremely prolific up until the line folded altogether, Berube’s work can be found in issues of Young Romance, Girls’ Love Stories, Girls’ Romances, Secret Hearts, Heart Throbs, Falling in Love, Young Love and Date with Debbi.
 

Lee Marrs

Remembered more today as a writer, Zatanna and Faultlines author Lee Marrs got her start with DC as a penciler, working on stories in ’70s anthology titles like House of Secrets, Weird Mystery Tales and Plop!—sometimes with writer Steve Skeates, and sometimes writing herself.
 

Jan Duursema-Mandrake

Jan Duursema’s career in comics spans over four decades, working with and without her husband Tom Mandrake on over a hundred issues for DC alone. A specialist in the fantasy genre, Duursema’s most spectacular DC artwork could be found in titles such as Warlord, Arak: Son of Thunder, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Arion: Lord of Atlantis.
 

June Brigman

June Brigman was among the class of artists whose career in mainstream comics launched with 1984’s New Talent Showcase. Inheriting the newspaper strip Brenda Starr, Reporter from Ramona Fradon herself, her most notable work with DC was the 1994 Supergirl miniseries. Brigman would return to DC in 2015 with frequent writing partner Louise Simonson for a two-issue reunion on Convergence: Superman: The Man of Steel.
 

Wendy Pini

Best known as co-creator of the groundbreaking fantasy series ElfQuest, Pini was one of many pencilers to contribute a chapter of work to the landmark Superman #400.
 

Cara Sherman-Tereno

A collaborator of Jan Duursema who was best known for her work in vampire romance, Tereno’s all too brief career in comics included a run of seven issues in Arion, Lord of Atlantis.
 

Colleen Doran

It’s no stretch to call Colleen Doran one of the most influential and evocative fantasy comic artists of all time, with some definitive work on titles such as The Sandman, Lucifer, Shade, The Changing Man, Reign of the Zodiac and a great deal more on titles outside of DC inspired by the Vertigo aesthetic. But some of her earliest work for DC was on the Legion of Super-Heroes titles, including a ten-issue run on Valor. Her work can still be found in DC titles as recently as 2023, with a four-issue run of variant covers on Detective Comics #1066-1069.
 

Judith Hunt

Renowned children’s book illustrator Judith Hunt had a momentary early career with DC working on the licensed Robotech Defenders series. But her most notable contribution to DC history is her work on the 1985 Losers Special, bringing the story of DC’s hardest luck team in war comics to its conclusion, one part of the end of an era with Crisis on Infinite Earths.
 

We’re relieved to say that the second half of DC’s history thus far hasn’t been quite so dire for the chances given to female artists as the first. Since 1986, at least another 130 women have had the opportunity to pencil DC comics. But that doesn’t mean the work is done. Taking stock of every title that DC released this March, only two—Catwoman, with Marianna Ignazzi, and Harley Quinn, with Mindy Lee—can credit a female penciler. Three more, Absolute Wonder Woman and Batman: Dark Patterns with Hayden Sherman, and Harley Quinn Fartacular: Silent Butt Deadly with Ted Brandt and Ro Stein, have nonbinary pencilers. The rest of the field is male.

The purpose of Women’s History Month is not just to honor our women, but to recognize where society has failed them. Only in doing so can we make a conscious effort to open doors sealed by prejudice that so many of us don’t even realize were ever there. Seeing it is the necessary first step to a better future.
 

Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.