I say ‘feminist’ up there, I’m not sure that’s how all these artists would define themselves, but if you are a feminist or even have an interest in gender I think you may find a lot to love in their work. To be honest I’m not even sure they’d all call themselves cartoonists either… You may well have heard of them before, but if not, you’re in for a treat.

Planned Parenthood Superhero by Ellen Forney

1) Ellen Forney

I picked up I Love Led Zeppelin after Forney was mentioned in Trina Robbins’ fantastic book From Girls to Grrrlz. It would have been worth it just for the fantastic ‘how to’ series, which include: how to re-attach an amputated finger, how to dominate someone, how to talk to your kids about drugs. But there’s lots of good stuff here (especially if you like your stuff on the queer side) and I love Forney’s warm, clear lines.

The Plantagenets by Kate Beaton

2) Kate Beaton

Creator of the sublime Hark! A Vagrant. Lovely sketchy style and irreverent, affectionate, feminist comics about famous figures from literature and history including personal favourites Queen Elizabeth I and the Brontes.

This Shit Gets Me Down by Kate Leth

3) Kate Leth

Works in a comic book shop, is awesome. Cartoonifies episodes from her life and renders them adorable. Bonus points for feminism, geekery, queer themes and excellent tattoos. The Ultimate Kate or Die book is available from Etsy.

Mermaid and pirate embrace, by Dame Darcy

4) Dame Darcy

Artist, doll-maker, banjo-player, part-time mermaid… Dame Darcy is morbid and fabulous just like her comic Meat Cake, which largely defies description. A bizarre and chaotic mix of Victoriana, fairytales, gothic and goth, Meat Cake has a cast of equally strange characters which include a smooth-talking wolf, a superbitch mermaid, and the tragic undead Strega Pez who can communicate only through messages delivered on Pez-like tablets from her slashed throat. Makes Gloom Cookie look like The Archers.

Lovelace with cogs, by Sydney Padua

5) Sydney Padua

Sydney Padua is responsible for taking the already badass Ada Lovelace, putting her in breeches, giving her a raygun and setting her off on a series of steampunk adventures where she can use MATHS to fight crime, solve mysteries, battle vampire poets etc… There’s a book on the way it seems, but in the meantime you can buy 2D Goggles merch.

The puerile association between a woman’s choice of tattoo placement and her sexual availability. AKA the Tramp Stamp. I hate that word. I hate it as a woman who has many tattoos and is bored rigid of all the shitty comments from the Morally Uptight Brigade about how ink looks “common” or “trashy” on women (and it’s almost always about women), how I’ll hate it when I get older, which is another dull reminder of how once we’ve lost our looks we’re for the bonfire of other people’s vanities.

But worse is the fact that tattoos, particularly this placement, have been added to the ever mounting list of Reasons Why Women Are Sluts. We marched for this, people!

A quick scroll around the internet reveals the extent of the problem. Over 2 million results on Google for the term “tramp stamp” alone. Top hit is the Wikipedia article which doesn’t even try to assert any form of anti-sexism editing beyond the coy reference to “lower back tattoo”, which I initially applauded until I saw the bare bottom shots used in the article. There are pages and pages devoted to deriding these tattoos, and the women who have them. So far, so bad.

The litmus test is whether the chaps get tarred with the same brush. Seems not. They may well have tattoos in this place (it’s a good bit of skin to get inked) but they’re apparently doing it for the irony factor. Or, poor thing, by accident.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not denying that some of these tattoos are ugly, silly or plain ridiculous. I’m very fussy about my tattoos and I love each one to bits almost as much as I love bitching about crap ones. Tattoos are a matter of personal taste, not a flag declaring whether or not I want to sleep with you: if you pour scorn and sexist drivel on my ink, then I definitely don’t.

Tramp stamp – another phrase that we can probably do without. Agreed?