Celebrating Women Cartoonists!

Celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day by honouring my favourite women cartoonists.  As a child, I loved watching cartoons! Hello Kitty is one of my favourite Sanrio cartoon character, and I spent endless hours watching Spongebob Squarepants and Strawberry Shortcake. These cartoons inspired me to create Becca’s Artsy Corner.  Thank you for your inspirations!
 
Yuko Shimizu
Yuko Shimizu created Hello Kitty in 1974. Hello Kitty was first introduced in the USA in 1976 and it found commercial success.  Yuko Shimizu was born in Japan, and before creating  the iconic Hello Kitty, Yuko painted flowers on rubber sandals and sold them! Some other characters that Yuko created includes “Angel Cat Sugar” and “Rebecca Bonbon”. Besides creating iconic characters, Yuko also illustrated a picture book which won a 2021 Caldecott Honor! 
 
Miyuki Okumura
A manga artist, Miyuki Okumura created Cinnamaroll in 2001. The character Cinnamaroll resembles a cinnamon roll and a white puppy. Besides creating Cinnamaroll, Miyuki also designed the character for the “Wish Me Mell” series.
 
Naoko Togashi
Created by Naoko Togashi, Sailor Moon is a popular Japanese Manga series.  Before Naoko became a manga artist, she worked as a Miko. The series revolves around a character named Usagi Tsukino who transforms to “Sailor Moon” in search of a magical artifact called the "Legendary Silver Crystal" throughout the series. Naoko won the 1993 Kodansha Manga Award for her creation of Sailor Moon. 
 
Elena Kucharik
Care Bears, a series of multi-coloured bear characters, was originally painted in 1981 by artist Elena Kucharik. Elena worked as a children’s illustrator and her “Care Bears” paintings used to be used on American Greetings’ Greeting Cards. The uniqueness about each Care Bears is that each Care Bears has its own colour and has a special belly badge that represents its personality.

Barbie Sargent
Strawberry Shortcake was originally created by Barbie Sargent in 1973. It was not originally called Strawberry Shortcake but called Girl with a Daisy instead. Barbie was a freelance artist for the greeting card company American Greetings. 
 
Daron Nefcy
Daron Nefcy is an American animator, writer and producer. Daron is the creator of the famous Disney channel cartoon Star Vs. the Forces of Evil. Star Vs. the Forces of Evil. is the first Disney channel cartoon that was created by a female. Daron’s inspiration for the characters of Star Vs. the Forces of Evil were inspired by popular Japanese Manga Cartoon like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z. Daron is currently the Executive Producer in Animation Development at Nickelodeon.
 
Emily Kapnek
Emily Kapnek a writer, actress and a television producer is best known as the creator of the popular Nickelodeon animated comedy-drama television series “As told by Ginger” which first aired on 2000. Other than being a television creator, Emily is also a theme song lyricist, writing the theme song of As told my Ginger, Emily’s Reasons Why Not and more. 
 
 
Rebecca Lim 
Digital Marketing Intern & Artist of Becca’s Artsy Corner