I have been a big fan of Nicole Hollander’s for some time. Her Sylvia cartoons appear in 30 newspapers across the country including The Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle (online) The San Francisco Examiner, and she is represented by the Tribune Media Services. Her cartoons are always spot on politically and of course, quite funny. She is in a league of her own.

Her new book, The Sylvia Chronicles, a compilation of 30 years of her work is now available for purchase from the New Press.

Support a feminist cartoonist.

Here is a short excerpt from how Sylvia was created and also several strips related to Hollywood — which do not appear in the book — which Nicole shared with Women & Hollywood.

The Birth of Sylvia

I created Sylvia to say what I couldn’t. It’s a Walter Mitty thing.
She is also going to be ten years older than me, forever. She seems to live exclusively on donuts and never gains an ounce. She was always pretty large. She has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, or she’s blowing a huge bubble gum balloon. She should have sags and wrinkles or tiny lines around her smoker’s mouth, but I can’t do it. What does she do for a living? I’m not quite sure. Do people pay her for her tart advice? Do those self-help workshops she advertises actually exist? Certainly, she doesn’t work at an office. Mainly, she sits in front of her typewriter, hands poised over the keyboard, precariously balancing a cup of coffee, a bottle of WiteOut, and an ashtray.

She doesn’t use a computer. I have a difficult relationship with both of mine, why should she be bothered? Sylvia doesn’t go to a gym or take long walks in the park. A trip to the mailbox is quite enough exertion for her. In fact, exercise and a healthy diet are often the butt of her jokes… as are politicians, bankers, stockbrokers, the FBI, airplane travel, sexism, racism, Republicans, the rich, and, most of all, women who write books on how feminism ruined their lives. She comments on everything.

She says the things that I can’t or, in fact, don’t even want to say.