Trina Robbins, the comic writer, artist, Underground Comix creator, and comics historian died on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. She was 85 years old.

Born Trina Perlson on August 17, 1938, in Brooklyn, Robbins started reading comics and became a science fiction fan during childhood. She began drawing for sci-fi fanzines like Habakkuk, and had her first published comic work in the underground newspaper, The East Village Other. She designed Vampirella’s costume for Warren Publishing in 1969.

Robbins also ran a clothing store in New York’s East Village, that was favored by singer Joni Mitchell who named Robbins in her song, “Ladies of the Canyon.”

She was a part of the Underground Comix movement that started in the late 1960s, creating It Ain’t Me, Babe Comix – the first book of its kind written and drawn only by female creators. In the ‘70s, she co-created the anthology Wimmen’s Comix, which showcased the talents of women in the industry.

For DC, Robbins drew the Wonder Woman miniseries, paying homage to H.G. Peter’s work. She returned to the character for the graphic novel, Wonder Woman: The Once and Future Story with Colleen Doran. Her comic work also included providing art in Misty at Star Comics, California Girls for Eclipse Comics, and GoGirl! at Image and Dark Horse.

In 1985, she became a comic book historian, co-writing Women and the Comics with Catherine Yronwode, which explored the history of women in comics. For the next 25 years, she wrote more comic history books like A Century of Women Cartoonists, The Great Women Superheroes, The Great Women Cartoonists, Pretty in Ink, and Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age.

She was one of the founders of the non-profit Friends of Lulu that worked to draw more young female readers to comics. Robbins was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013.