Edwina

Edwina Dumm (1893-1990) was one of the first female cartoonists in the world. Perhaps the very first! Her most famous creation was the daily comic strip Tippie - about a dog.Edwina was born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio in 1893. Her father, Frank Edwin Dumm, was an actor and playwright who turned newspaperman. Edwina was inspired by her father's new job to become a political and topical cartoonist. She took a correspondence course at the Landon School of illustrating and cartooning and sent out many samples of her work to syndicates, and eventually moved to New York. Her career took off there, with 'Cap Stubbs and Tippie', which first appeared in 1921. This strip about a dog soon gained in popularity, and the title was changed to 'Tippie and Cap Stubbs', and in the mid-1960s, to simply 'Tippie'. 'Tippie' was also turned into a weekly feature in Life magazine and the London Tatler, but the dog's name in this version was 'Sinbad'. She also created the poetic 'Alec the Great' panels, with text by her brother, Robert Dennis.Edwina Dumm also did illustrations for children's books and, after a long and successful career, retired to devote herself to painting watercolor portraits. She died in 1990 after a long, happy life. Her name deserves to be remembered by all comic art fans for her pioneering work for female cartonists.