Trina Robbins

(August 17, 1938 – April 10, 2024)

Trina Castillo and Forrest J Ackerman, ca. 1960.

A BArea fanartist, Trina Robbins (née Perlson, then Castillo) started out as a teenager letterhacking for prozines in the early 1950s, and got in touch with New York fans. She next entered fanzine fandom and created much zine artwork after she moved to the West Coast with cartoonist Art Castillo (whose name she took, though they weren’t married). Among her stock cartoon characters was a ponytailed femmefan wearing a propeller beanie.

In February 1960, she became the artwork, appearing on the cover of Fanac #53 wearing only a propeller beanie and a copy of Fancyclopedia 2. (She also had a brief career in the late 1950s and early ’60s as a pin-up model for such men’s magazines as Caper, Rogue and Dude.) She was the costume designer for Vampirella. She sometimes used the pseudonym Trina Petit. She attended a number of conventions.

Years later, as Trina Robbins (at some point, she married, then divorced Paul Jay Robbins), she become a pro cartoonist and writer. She was an early and influential participant and one of the few female artists in the fledgling underground comix movement. Later, she worked on the Wonder Woman comics.

Art by Trina Perlson from Hobgoblin 1 (November 1959).

Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for and promoting female comics artists. She is the author of many works on women in comics, including A Century of Women Cartoonists (Kitchen Sink, 1993), and the memoir Last Girl Standing (Fantagraphics Books, 2017).

She was the daughter of Yiddishist Max B. Perlson, and in 2017 published a translated, graphic novel version of his 1938 story collection, A Minyen Yidn (Ten Jews).

She died after a stroke, survived by her partner, comic book artist Steve Leialoha, and Casey Robbins, her daughter with cartoonist Kim Deitch, with whom Trina was involved from 1969–70.

• Website (archived).
• Weblog.
• Bibliography at ISFDB.
• Forbes obituary.
• NY Times obituary.

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1977 -- San Diego Comic-Con
• 1992 -- WisCon 16
• 2001 -- NonCon 1
• 2013 -- CopperCon 33, Will Eisner Hall of Fame
• 2017 -- Wizard World Hall of Legends

• Trina Robbins’ art from Habakkuk Vol. 3, #3, Spring 1994.
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Person

1938—2024

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