A CENTURY OF WOMEN CARTOONISTS by...

A CENTURY OF WOMEN CARTOONISTS by Trina Robbins (Kitchen Sink Press: $16.95; 180 pp., paperback original). This large format survey presents the graphic work of a neglected group of artists: The women who have drawn comic strips since the inception of the medium. Unfortunately, Robbins seems more interested in decrying the unfair treatment female artists received decades ago than in chronicling their achievements. In a misguided effort to praise Dale Messick’s overwrought “Brenda Starr,” she dismisses Sidney Smith’s “The Gumps,” apparently unaware that it was the most popular strip of the ‘20s.