The activism of Misty

The Trina Robbins Collection and Papers at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum houses over 1,000 items of correspondence from readers, most of which include fashion design contributions for inclusion in Misty. These materials – like other inter- and extra-textual social practices such as fanzines, discussion groups, and conventions – can be understood as ‘acts of deterritorialisation’ (Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016b, 207), that is, taking ideas or cultural forms out of their original context and reworking them in new settings. They function as textual engagements or reworkings through which ‘the creator’s rights are superseded by the reader’s desire… [but] each is a form of production, each is an action of desire, and all are connected as a “machine of machine”’ (Sweeney, Reference Sweeneyn.d., n.p.; cited in Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016b, 207). Misty further complicates this dynamic, however, by actively incorporating these reworkings into the published text.

Seen in this way, Misty’s participatory apparatus aligns closely with Svirsky’s conceptualisation of activism. From a creative standpoint, the title’s participatory structure provides a venue for ‘critical engagement with dominant forms of life’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 170): readers (re)construct textual elements according to their own lived experiences, and Trina Robbins integrates these reader-contributed elements into her own narratives, resulting in a continually evolving textual-graphical assemblage. Furthermore, in their letters, readers engage with issues beyond the creation of individual designs and narratives, advocating, for instance, that Misty adopt narrative and socio-cultural practices in comic book culture, such as extended continuity and official fan clubs. In this regard, readers’ activism extends beyond the creative enterprise of comics production and meets the (often divergent) priorities and motivations of the commercial enterprises and fan-based cultures of comics.

The participatory and activist impulse of Misty is a bulwark against complacency, stasis, and stagnation in comics. As Svirsky puts it, ‘[L]ife has an ever-changing problematic structure. Every multiplicity changes its virtual structure by way of actualisations, that is, by passing into temporary solutions…’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 169). However, he also suggests that bodies exhibit a tendency towards resisting the ‘potentiality of virtual structure’ and falling into stagnation out of passive ‘social obedience’ (ibid, 170). It is this stagnation against which activist processes push as they investigate well-established systems ‘with a view to the emergence of an alternative sociability’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 175). Participatory comics titles like Misty resist this tendency toward stagnation by actively seeking out new textual potentialities from their readers.

In doing so, creators of participatory comics necessarily must consider this multiplicity of alternative possibilities, the various re-imaginings of the text that their readers offer.Footnote ³ Of course, there were practical limits to the extent to which readers could influence and contribute to Misty, but readers nonetheless had agency in most textual elements – from feature titles, to outfits, to one-off jokes, to entire narrative plotlines. Each implementation of a reader-submitted idea functions as a ‘temporary solution’ for a textual element in Misty. On a textual level, then, the participatory apparatus is a fundamentally activist endeavour, as it diverts the comic ‘from its tendency to eternalise and deepen itself in its actual forms’ (ibid).

The collection of fan mail to Robbins provides further evidence of the activist dynamic in Misty. The collective assemblage of reader correspondence constitutes Misty’s ‘virtual structure’, as each submission promotes one or more textual possibilities. On an individual level, each submission ‘comes into being through the creation of a new series of interconnected elements as a result of alternative connections with (a) given registers of the actualised world, and (b) new imaginations’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 177). In other words, readers experiment with the textual elements of Misty by disconnecting them from their ‘official’ contexts and reimagining them anew in conversation with their own local environments and experiences. This act of imaginative reconfiguration – detaching and recombining narrative and visual elements – functions as a mode of critical engagement through which readers assert agency over the meanings and futures of the text.

Imagination here is not merely fanciful, but a constitutive force that allows readers to rework cultural forms into new configurations grounded in their lived experiences. In this context, Svirsky’s (Reference Svirsky2010) conception of activism manifests not as overt political resistance but as the production of situated, localised knowledge through imaginative engagement with cultural forms. This framing allows us to interpret Misty readers’ creative participation as a kind of micropolitical intervention. In general, micropolitical activism refers to small-scale, everyday actions that subtly reshape larger social or cultural systems. Here, that dynamic takes the form of an activist act that reconfigures the comic’s text from the ground up. Thus, Misty’s ‘activism entails an engagement in the production of situational or local knowledge’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 175) in which readers borrow material and cultural practices from their local environments and incorporate them into their own creative ideas for Misty. Indeed, each reader’s drawing or narrative suggestion promotes textual possibilities formed out of a multiplicity of connections to the situational and local milieu (see also Knight, Reference Knight2013, 260).

These various social, material, and environmental connections are sometimes readily apparent in readers’ drawings. For example, a design for a nightgown by Barbara Cottrell takes direct inspiration from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. The design reworks a panel from an April 28, 1972 Peanuts comic strip, featuring Schulz’s Snoopy sleeping in a mailbox. Cottrell’s illustration is positioned above the phrase ‘Happiness is a quick nap’ (Figure 3; Cottrell, Reference Cottrell1985), which is not present in the source comic strip (Figure 4; Schulz, 1972). Similarly, Jenny Welka proposes a shirt design featuring the iconic Mickey Mouse (Figure 5; Welka, Reference Welka1986) and invites Robbins to render the character more faithfully. More personally, Patricia Buczek, from Buffalo, New York, includes a design consisting of a yellow and green striped suit and a pennant reading ‘St. Paul’s Tigers’ (Figure 6; Buczek, Reference Buczek1986). Buczek’s design is likely inspired by a certain local youth baseball team, which sports a similar colour scheme.Footnote ⁴ While we cannot know precisely the conscious or subconscious intentions and motivations behind these ‘contingent connections with the conditions surrounding their creation’ (Knight, Reference Knight2013, 255), these designs surely represent a mapping of the assemblage of these readers’ environments. They are ‘experimentation[s] in contact with the real’ (Deleuze and Guattari, Reference Deleuze and Guattari1987, 12) by which readers advocate for textual potentialities.

Figure 3.

An outfit design submitted by Barbara Cottrell of Morrisville, PA.

Figure 4.

The first panel from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts strip from April 28, Schulz, Reference Schulz1975, from which Cottrell’s design in Figure 3 above drew inspiration.

Figure 5.

A design submitted by Jenny Welka of Oak Park, IL, featuring Mickey Mouse.

Figure 6.

An outfit design submitted by Patricia Buczek of Buffalo, NY.

Although she was highly receptive to her readers’ ideas, Trina Robbins could not have included every submission, even if she had wanted to, within the limited confines of a six-issue series. We might wonder, then, how she negotiated this assemblage of contributions in shaping the final published text. Fortunately, Robbins left traces of her editorial process in the form of handwritten notes on envelopes and letters. These marginalia – such as ‘LOC’ (Letter of Comment), ‘advice’, ‘usable’, ‘primo’, ‘cute!!!’, or ‘good design’ – reveal a working editorial vocabulary used to assess the nature, utility, and appeal of each submission. While such notes offer insight into Robbins’ curatorial decision-making, they were not determinative: some marked submissions were not included in Misty, and some unmarked ones were. Robbins’ comments illustrate an extension of the ‘virtual structure’ of the text, providing insight into her interactions with and responses to this assemblage of local knowledge creation.Footnote ⁵

Beyond this curatorial layer, Robbins’ interactions with her readers extended into more public and participatory forms throughout the production of Misty – and later California Girls. Selected letters were published in the ‘Dear Misty’ column, where Robbins responded directly to readers’ questions and reflections. Contributors whose designs were featured in the comic received a ‘Misty Designers Club’ membership card, reinforcing their status as active participants in the creative process. These editorial, paratextual, and material exchanges together constitute a dialogic relationship between creator and audience. Svirsky (Reference Svirsky2010, 163) calls this ‘collective enunciation’, meaning a shared act of expression in which meaning is produced together rather than by a single voice. In this case, Robbins serves not merely as a gatekeeper but as a co-contributor in a distributed production of local knowledge and meaning.

A specific dialogic exchange can be seen in a group of letters referencing Hawaiian themes. Hawaiian reader Stacy Miyake submitted fashion designs and a letter of comment. She writes:

Apparently intrigued by this idea, Trina noted, ‘Hawaii travel idea’, on the back of Stacy’s submission. Victoria Leigh Dias, also from Hawaii, suggests similarly, ‘Maby [sic] you can even go to hawaii and become a hula dancer’. Robbins made another note, ‘Hawaii’, on Dias’s envelope (Dias, Reference Dias1986).

These narrative suggestions were complemented by other visual design suggestions. Robbins wrote notes about Hawaii on two other reader-contributed fashion designs. One design, by Hawaiian reader Carroll Kainui, included a floral headpiece, necklace, and dress, on whose envelope Robbins noted, ‘good designs – Hawaii!’ (Figure 7; Kainui, Reference Kainui1986). Likewise, Andrea Mucci’s submission included a design consisting of a floral skirt, bandeau, bracelet, headpiece, and even a lei, on which Robbins wrote, ‘usable fashions (plus Hawaiian!)’ (Figure 8; Mucchi, Reference Mucchi1986). Miyake, Dias, Kainui, and Mucci all engaged in local and situational knowledge-creation, combining their interest in Misty with their experiences of their own local, cultural, and sartorial practices. In conveying these experiences to Trina Robbins, readers promote a textual potentiality in which Misty herself embraces their local culture(s). Robbins’ annotations conceptually link each letter, ‘agglomerating very diverse acts, not only linguistic, but also perceptive, mimetic, gestural, and cognitive’ (Deleuze and Guattari, Reference Deleuze and Guattari1987, 7). Taken together, these letters emphasise the possibility of a Hawaiian-themed feature in Misty, which Robbins evidently noticed. Unfortunately, this idea was never realised in the pages of Misty, and so it remains a potentiality.

Figure 7.

Outfits designed by Carroll Kainui and annotations from Trina Robbins.

Figure 8.

Outfit designed by Andrea Mucci.

Other collective enunciations, however, did make their way into the text. Misty #6 contains a feature in which Misty gains superpowers upon purchasing a new dress from the ‘Boutique Magique’. Robbins credits the story’s title, ‘Super Misty’, to reader Wren Britton, but Britton’s letter is unfortunately missing from the collection. However, two submissions contain notes from Robbins in reference to this plotline. Robbins wrote ‘use for Super Misty #6’ above Georgiana Leonard’s dress design featuring a lightning bolt decoration, and Robbins scrawled ‘Super heroine’ on the letter’s envelope (Figure 9; Leonard, Reference Leonard1986). Leonard’s design contribution was adapted for Super Misty’s costume (Figure 10; Misty #6 Robbins, Reference Robbins1986). Robbins apparently also considered Brenda Melville’s contribution of a similar lightning-themed design for the central outfit in the feature, writing ‘super heroine?’ on Melville’s envelope (Figure 11; Melville, Reference Melville1986). A pin-up page following the feature includes superhero-themed outfits adapted from other readers’ submissions (Figure 12; Misty #6 Robbins, Reference Robbins1986).

Figure 9.

Outfit designed by Georgia Leonard.

Figure 10.

A panel from Misty #6 (October 1986) includes Trina Robbins’ rendering of Leonard’s design from Figure 9.

Figure 11.

Outfit designed by Brenda Melville.

Figure 12.

Pinup page in Misty #6 (October 1986) with superhero-themed paper dolls.

Given the dominance of the superhero genre in comic-book culture during the 1980s, it is unsurprising that readers would suggest that Misty be portrayed as a superhero. Robbins’ choice to realise this idea from among the multiplicity of proposed potentialities results in a one-off parody of the superhero genre in Misty, in which the text temporarily adopts the logic and tropes of a superhero narrative. In fact, the transience of the superhero motif is made explicit: after a long day of crime-fighting, Misty washes her new superhero outfit, and the lightning-bolt design fades away along with Misty’s superpowers. Hoping to return the dress to Boutique Magique, Misty arrives at the store only to find a bakery in its place. Eerily, the shopkeeper informs Misty that the bakery has existed in that location for the last seven years. The feature concludes with Misty wondering: ‘Did I really have super-powers — or was it just my super imagination?!?’ (Robbins, Reference Robbins1986).

More than just explaining away the abrupt abandonment of the text’s fantastical superhero elements, this conclusion emphasises the nearly limitless creative potential enabled by the incorporation of reader-contributed ideas. In describing her motivation for creating Misty, Robbins had stated, ‘I was really so sick of editors saying, “Girls don’t read comics,” because I know that when you give girls comics they like to read, girls read comics. But they’re not interested in a bunch of muscular guys punching each other out’ ( Trina Robbins, personal communication, cited in Walsh Reference Walsh2022, 160). By incorporating the reader-suggested superhero genre and its tropes only to have the stereotypical superpowers fade away, Robbins subtly undermines the genre’s culture and associations, replacing them with the ‘superpower’ of the imaginations of both Misty and her readers.

Indeed, Svirsky explains that ‘imagination’ is a central function of activism, as it enables us to envision alternative ideas following from the investigation of dominant systems: it ‘not only leads to the conceptualisation of the passage into common notions [in this case, the superhero archetype], but also means that we might have a multiplicity of several and different affection-ideas…’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 176). Such a moment reminds us of this multiplicity of narrative possibilities within Misty, its resistance against establishing a stagnant textual identity: ‘the first steps into seemingly new terrain, posited on the old terrain, fighting against this old terrain and using it at the same time to transform it into something different’ (Raunig, Reference Raunig2007, 41–42). It is sadly ironic, however, that this would be Misty’s last full-length feature.

Readers also used Misty’s participatory apparatus to advocate for change beyond the text. Many letters indicate a desire that the comic reflect practices found in comic book culture more broadly, such as extended continuity, official fan clubs, or alternative distribution practices. This activism differs from that described above in that it is aimed not at participating in Misty’s system of ongoing collaborative creation but at preserving that system in the face of less supportive external structures (ie, the publisher and distributors). This view aligns closely with Jeffery’s conceptualisation of a ‘rhizome of comic book culture’ composed of stratified corporate, creator, and reader domains, whose activities and priorities are divergent but also interconnected and interdependent (Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016a, 48). Both Robbins and her readers recognised that their creative interests in the comic are not always aligned with those of corporate structures, and so they used the participatory apparatus to voice their concerns.

In this way, this form of reader activism involves ‘the encounter of forces, bodies and things… [through which] activism collides with the stable structure, producing a sort of dialectical relation’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 170). In other words, readers’ advocacy for extra-textual change can be seen as negotiations among reader, creator, and corporate assemblages. The reader and creator want to preserve and make accessible the creative project of Misty, but the corporation is primarily interested in generating sufficient profit. Fundamentally, this relationship is predicated upon an unequal power dynamic: the creative activity of Robbins and her readers is dependent on the support of the corporate structure. Thus, this form of activism generally promotes a more cooperative relationship in which corporate systems generate profit while readers engage with Misty’s creative project.

This dialectical activism is most evident in letters advocating for Misty’s continued publication beyond its initial six-issue run. Twenty-seven-year-old Jeffery C. Branch, one of at least 64 readers who expressed interest in the series’ continuation, outlines a potential path forward for Misty:

Branch posits that readers should lobby the corporation in a manner similar to the process of political activism, in which constituents contact their government representatives. He believes that Misty’s continuity depended on reader advocacy, but he also recognises that the comic’s future ultimately rested with the publisher, highlighting the stark power differential between these domains. Svirsky suggests that such a democratic framework ‘limits and contains nomadic forms of resistance… creating distinctions between moral worlds… [and doing] nothing to further the exploration and intensification of present activist potentialities’ (2010, 166–167). Indeed, readers must balance advocating for their interests with accepting the corporation’s ultimate control. Marvel’s decision to conclude Misty after its planned six-issue run is perhaps evidence of the limitations of the dialectic activism practiced by Misty’s readers.

Furthermore, Robbins identifies distribution and the whims of comics shops and their perceived clientele as forces restricting access to Misty:

According to Robbins, comic book stores excluded teen humour fashion comics like Misty because they were not marketed to their predominantly male clientele. Even though Misty was published by a mainstream publisher, it apparently was not, in Robbins’ view, fully embraced in social and retail comics spaces. Robbins’ comments here colour her later claim that ‘the majority of women who do read comics tend to gravitate to [indie comics]’ (Robbins, Reference Robbins2002, np).Footnote ⁶ Without access to the physical comic, readers also lost access to its participatory culture. Indeed, at least three readers either expressed difficulty in finding the comic in stores or asked about a subscription-based model of distribution (Walsh, Reference Walsh2022, 166–167). These readers used this open line of communication to advocate for their access to the text.

Finally, readers advocated for a social apparatus akin to the publisher-run fan clubs that emerged during the Golden Age of comics (see Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016a, 48), such as the Archie Club from M.L.J. Magazines/Archie comics or the Captain Marvel Club from Fawcett. Although readers whose material was included in Misty received a card certifying their membership in the ‘Misty Designer’s Club,’ there was no official Marvel-sponsored club that readers could join. At least six readers inquired about an official Misty fan club. For instance, a postscript on 7-year-old Angela Russell’s letter, likely written by a parent, asks: ‘Can you send information on a fan club? There are several little girls in the neighborhood who love the comic. Thanks!’ (Russell, Reference Russell1986). Readers (and their parents) were cognizant of the local social networks that formed around Misty and lobbied for publisher-supported infrastructure for those networks. Robbins seemed enthusiastic about the idea, writing on Russell’s envelope, ‘LOC wants fan club!’ The extent to which she herself communicated with Marvel about a publisher-sponsored organisation is unknown, but the archival collection certainly indicates a joint desire by both reader and creator to include Misty among the Marvel titles with officially sponsored social groups.Footnote ⁷

In the absence of an officially sanctioned fan organisation, however, some readers took it upon themselves to create their own fan clubs to support their local social networks. Nine-year-old Nausheen Hassan, for example, writes about starting a Misty fan club – complete with dress code and membership cards – with her friend. Through the establishment of an unofficial fan club, Hassan ‘bypasses existent stable practices’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 171) to construct a new, alternative institution based on local and situational exploration. However, Hassan’s work does not constitute a total rejection of the corporate dialectic. In the interest of attracting more members to her club, she requests that Misty extend its publication beyond six issues: ‘Like millions, we don’t want a limited series, we want one that goes on & on, like, for instance, Archie comics’ (Nausheen Hassan, July 21, Reference Hassan1986).

The aggregate of readers’ submissions constitutes ‘an assemblage of encounters pushing the system [ie Misty’s text and/or Marvel’s corporate-assemblage] towards new states’ (Svirsky, Reference Svirsky2010, 168). Misty’s participatory structure encouraged and embraced the promotion of reader-created potentialities based on local and situational knowledge creation, fostering an ever-evolving textual environment fuelled by activism. However, because of the comic’s inescapable connection to the profit-driven corporate assemblage, readers’ extratextual activisms generally involved a dialectical mode of critical engagement that sought to preserve Misty’s participatory apparatus and make it more accessible.

Ultimately, this activism was not successful in sustaining Misty. However, Robbins’ next project, California Girls, published by the independent publisher Eclipse Comics, included a participatory structure similar to Misty. It was an opportunity to experiment – to create the participatory culture anew. Many contributors to Misty – including Jeffery C. Branch, Barbara Cottrell, and Wren Britton (all mentioned above) – were attracted by this new opportunity to participate in comics creation and also submitted to California Girls.

Misty’s impact on readers

Readers engaged in activist practices to contribute to and affect the narrative direction of Misty and to advocate for the preservation of their creative enterprise. Likewise, Misty’s participatory culture itself affected its readers in turn. Jeffery points out that engaging with comic book culture can influence how readers construct their own identities both abstractly and materially – for example, through abstract self-identification as a ‘geek’ or through physical body alterations like tattoos (Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016b, 214–217). Indeed, Misty’s rich participatory apparatus invites us to consider how involvement in this fundamentally activist endeavour could affect the construction of readers’ own identities. In this section, we explore how the creative project of Misty enabled the personal empowerment of its participants in both the short and long term.

Perhaps most immediately, engagement with participatory culture provided Misty’s readers – most of whom were children – with an outlet to engage with the world around them. On studying child development through children’s drawings, Linda Knight suggests that ‘what is relevant is how the child connected to the milieu, to the ‘assemblage,’ the multitude of objects, sensations, emotions, people, creatures that surrounded him as he drew’ (Knight, Reference Knight2013, 260; de Freitas, Reference de Freitas2012). Hannah Sackett embraces Knight’s idea in her study of children’s comic-book making, suggesting that ‘as with comic-making, children’s drawing activities are caught up with other people and places, they are performative and discursive, material and embodied, and they happen in the world and in time’ (Sackett, Reference Sackett2021, 44). In this way, children’s drawings help us understand ‘how learning takes place voluntarily and instinctively, with the possibility of embracing connections and complexity and open-ended learning’ (ibid, 53). As illustrated above, connections to the local milieu are apparent in many of the designs and drawings submitted to Misty, and analysis of these connections is crucial for understanding how readers critically engaged the text.

Moreover, readers could receive answers to requests for advice either in the published letter column or through direct correspondence from Robbins herself, suggesting that Robbins had a ‘marked interest in building connections between the comic-assemblage and the reader’s reality’ (Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016a, 46). Indeed, the material and social realities of readers who considered or implemented Robbins’ advice may have been meaningfully shaped by their participation in the comic-creation process. Furthermore, the experience of seeing one’s conceptual, textual, or graphic contribution implemented in Misty could result in a range of affective responses such as validation, understanding, and acceptance. The ‘Misty Designer’s Club’ card materialised these intellectual, aesthetic, and emotive interactions: by inducting readers into an ‘official’ network of fellow Misty reader-creators, the card served as a physical reminder of readers’ impact on the creation of the text.

However, engaging in participatory culture can have more significant long-term effects. Indeed, we ‘are not only interested in how or why children draw, and how their works of art emerge through the process of making; [we] are also interested in the process of change that takes place in the children themselves’ (Sackett, Reference Sackett2021, 45). Misty’s readers, like the very text they helped create, are constantly changing and adapting, perpetually engaged in a continual process of ‘becoming’, a philosophical term for the idea that identities are always in process, never fixed. While reading comics habitually can aid in the construction of coded identities such as ‘geek’ or ‘fan’ (Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016b, 214–215), participatory culture prompted many of Misty’s young readers not just to construct who they are but to wonder who they might become. At least 17 readers indicated an interest in fashion design or comics authorship as a vocation in their letters (Walsh, Reference Walsh2022, 167). Just as Misty’s participatory culture enabled readers to advocate for the inclusion of their own textual ideas, it also encouraged readers to investigate their own potential futures in conversation with their present participation in collectivised comics creation.

It has been well-documented that many comics readers eventually become professional comics creators themselves (Jeffery, Reference Jeffery and Jeffery2016a, 50; Coogan, Reference Coogan2006, 218; Gordon, Reference Gordon2012), and Misty’s readership is no exception. Reader Bill Walko, for example, who was featured three times in Misty #6, is now a professional illustrator and comics author, creator of the long-running and critically acclaimed series, The Hero Business. Eric Shanower, known for his reimagining of the Trojan War in his Age of Bronze comics series, would have been a young man in his early twenties when he contributed designs to Misty. Others among Misty’s readership pursued creative professions similarly aligned with the comic’s scope and subject matter, such as fashion and visual art.

We now turn to more recent communications, conducted by email, telephone, and video conference, with three such readers. We contacted several former readers of Misty, many of whom have cultivated successful careers in diverse and often creative fields, including academia, photography and film, and pole dancing. Here, however, we highlight the recollections of Noémi Farkas, Shane Ballard, and Barbara Cottrell Trippeer because their professional work aligns most closely with the activity and subject matter of Misty’s participatory culture. These communications provided a venue for these former readers to remember their childhood engagement with Misty and to reflect on how this activity – even though they may have forgotten it before we contacted them – has shaped their lives and personal philosophies. In connecting these personal memories to the archival memory of reader’s contributions to Misty, we illustrate ‘how the mediated memory of earlier activism informs later activists and movements by feeding back into actions, mobilisations and expectations, though not necessarily in a linear way’ (Merrill and Rigney, Reference Merrill and Rigney2024, 999). In these rekindled memories, we found that engagement with Misty engendered a sense of self-empowerment, encouraging these readers to continue cultivating their creative interests long into adulthood.

Noémi Farkas, who sent two letters to Robbins and whose fashion design was featured on the cover of Misty #5 (Figure 13), has found success in the visual arts. Her most recent project, EGO, is the result of a process of deep self-reflection about her experience as a Romani woman and the ‘internal and external battles that take place between one’s own ego and the egos of others, even subconsciously’ (Farkas, 2024, EGO, NoémiFarkas.com). Her work was featured in a February 2024 exhibit at the Szentandrássy István Roma Art Gallery in Budapest. Drawing and art were fascinations for Farkas from an early age: ‘art sort of just came to me—I never really thought, “oh, I want to do art”… I’d just do it’ (Farkas, 2024, personal communication). Farkas drew constantly, recalling that her mother routinely brought home pencils and deposit slips from the bank that Farkas would use for drawing. The attention that her more recent work has attracted, she says, ‘makes me want to share what I’ve experienced so that I can help other people connect… It’s just wanting to connect…’ (ibid).

Figure 13.

Outfit designed by Noémi Farkas for Darlene (standing figure) on the cover of Misty #5 (August 1986).

As for Farkas’s interest in Misty, she was attracted to the comic book both for its participatory elements and for its focus on women: ‘[Misty] had a girl power thing to it, and I was always drawn to girl-power things and empowering myself because I’ve always been so… well, lacking self-confidence. And I’m sure many little girls were like that’ (ibid). While she was not an avid ‘comic-head’, she enjoyed reading comics with female protagonists, including Misty and the British title, Tank Girl: ‘it empowered me when I saw other females empower themselves… it inspired me’ (ibid). Seeing powerful women represented in comics gave Farkas confidence that she could achieve her own ambitions.

Although Farkas recalled a close friend who shared her love of reading and art, Farkas described her engagement with Misty as a solitary activity. Even so, it was the collective aspect of Misty’s participatory culture that ultimately compelled her to contribute: ‘when I saw other girls doing it, I was like, “oh it’s so cool you got your design in Misty?”… I just felt like it was fun! I wanted to do it—I wanted to do it too’ (ibid). Even though her participation was locally individualised, her motivations were decidedly social. Indeed, as Woo notes, ‘while “activity” may be entirely individualised, practices are inescapably collective. Even when pursued alone, they depend on a dense, multiply articulated assemblage of know-how, beliefs, and material resources; they are social through and through’ (Woo, Reference Woo2012, 183). Farkas felt inspired by seeing the work of other fans, and she, too, wanted to engage with that collective effort, hoping to see her own work in the pages of Misty.

And indeed she did. Farkas recalls her excitement at seeing her work recreated in the comic and connects those feelings to her current motivation for creating art:

The feeling of being ‘heard’ and understood by Robbins, seeing her submission realised in the text was invigorating to Farkas, and she has similar feelings regarding her current work:

The sense of pride, understanding, and impact that she felt upon seeing her work in Misty is found also in her reactions to seeing her current work in a public space. Both in childhood and today as an adult, Farkas feels empowered by creative endeavours and their capacity to connect with and affect others.

Shane Ballard, a reader whose fashion design was published in Misty #6 (Ballard, Reference Ballardn.d.; see Figures 14 and 15), later entered careers relevant to his interests in both comics and fashion. Ballard was an avid comics fan throughout his childhood – a ‘comic-book kid’ (Ballard 2024, personal communication). He also had a keen interest in illustration from the age of 2 years: his skill as an artist was highly developed even from an early age, and he particularly enjoyed drawing fantasy and science fiction subjects. As a teenager, fashion design became his primary artistic interest.

Figure 14.

Outfit designed by Shane Ballard.

Figure 15.

Panel in Misty #6 (October 1986) featuring Ballard’s design in Figure 14.

Ballard read mainstream Marvel and DC comics, but at around 11 years old, he became interested in titles like Misty, Katy Keene, and Betty and Veronica for their fashion-centred participatory elements: ‘I remember those three books all being a huge lightbulb moment for me. It was like two of the things that I loved the most merged together. And so, it was just a no-brainer for me to submit’ (ibid). His combined interests in comic books and fashion led Ballard to engage in participatory culture. His participation was foundational in that it demonstrated to him the potential impact of his ideas and work: ‘It was the perfect opportunity to see what I envisioned in my head from a fashion perspective on an actual character, and then to have it published. I think it was the first opportunity that I ever had to see something that I designed on a [published] page’ (ibid). Like Farkas, seeing Ballard’s own work in a widely distributed magazine was inspiring to him.

Ballard’s engagement in participatory culture was also a solitary endeavour. He had one friend who also read comics, but he recalls:

While we have shown that participation in Misty did help create local social networks, Ballard’s comments are evidence that teen humour fashion comics and their readership could be unwelcome in male-dominated comics spaces. He was even surprised to learn that a publication with such grassroots elements was an official Marvel publication: ‘I assumed that it was an indie comic book’ (ibid). Even as a male in the comics space, Ballard felt it would not have been ‘socially acceptable’ to share his engagement with these teen humour fashion comics with his larger friend group because of both gender expectations and wider social stigma surrounding comic book readership at the time.

After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Ballard utilised his knack for conceptual design to launch a career in the corporate fashion industry. However, Ballard eventually left the corporate world after realising it was less creative and more profit-driven than he had anticipated – a situation reminiscent of the divergence between the corporate priorities of Marvel Comics and the creative visions of Trina Robbins and her readers. Spurred by his continued appreciation for comics, Ballard pursued positions at Marvel in concept art, packaging, and toy design, but his career would only evolve further after he began designing costumes for his theatre director friend. Ballard’s work was noticed by well-known costume designer Paul Tazewell, who subsequently hired Ballard as an illustrator for the television show The Wiz Live in 2015. Since then, Ballard has worked as a costume designer and illustrator for television and film, as well as an educator at Rutgers University and FIT.

Ballard realised during our conversation that engagement with Misty had a long-term impact on his life. In remembering his contributions to Misty, he traced the philosophy that he applies to his current work to his childhood engagement with participatory culture:

In fact, Ballard had forgotten about his engagement in comics participatory culture until receiving our initial message. He suggested that this might have been because his participation had ‘folded into’ his understanding of himself as an ‘artistic over-achiever kid’ (Ballard, 2024, personal communication). Reader participation in comics was just one of many artistic endeavours Ballard pursued as a child, and this multiplicity facilitated the construction of his identity as an artist. He forgot the particular activity of submitting designs to comics, but retained the larger persona which this activity helped to shape. Remembering Misty and his engagement with it prompted Ballard to deconstruct that persona and to reflect on how that particular activity affected him over time: ‘It’s incredibly validating to see what I was doing creatively at eleven or twelve and to see that it’s been a journey for me that started so long ago. I’ve definitely found my niche’ (Ballard, personal communication).

For Farkas, the recollection of her experience with Misty similarly illuminated aspects of her life’s trajectory, of which she had not been consciously aware. Farkas realised that being ‘heard’ by the creators of Misty may have been a ‘spark’ that contributed to her philosophy on artistic creation throughout her life. Moreover, it encouraged her to ‘keep faith’ in doing art. She recalled, ‘even if I forget why, just keep doing it… [Misty] assured me that I could be heard… Right now that’s not what I recall when I put myself out there with this EGO exhibit and body of work, but definitely what I desired was to be heard and to make change…’ (Farkas, 2024, personal communication). For both Farkas and Ballard, the distant childhood activity of contributing to a larger, communal creative project had a lasting impact on their long-term artistic motivations, attitudes, and philosophies, as well as on their career and life choices.

Finally, Barbara Cottrell (now Barbara Cottrell Trippeer), whose fashion designs were featured in Misty #5 and #6, also went on to pursue fashion as a vocation. Trippeer was an avid comic book reader and illustrator throughout her youth. Drawing paper dolls, she recounts, ‘was [her] entry point to fashion’ (Trippeer, 2024, personal communication). She, like Farkas, was attracted to Misty because it was ‘one of the few [comics] marketed toward a female audience’ (ibid). Trippeer was also attracted to the title’s participatory elements: even after Misty’s conclusion, she sought opportunities to engage in comic book participatory culture, routinely submitting designs for Trina Robbins’ next project, Eclipse Comics’ California Girls. In California Girls #2, Trippeer was featured as ‘Designer of the Month’ (Figure 16; Robbins, Reference Robbins1987). It was these comics’ participatory elements, then, that prompted her to cultivate further her creative interests. Trippeer recalls, ‘my “success” in having my work selected informed my passion to continue [pursuing fashion] — even though I was not trained in home economics’ (ibid). Engaging with comic book participatory culture gave her personal license to pursue her interests in fashion design and illustration.

Figure 16.

Page in California Girls #2 (July 1987) highlighting Barbara Cottrell as ‘Designer of the Month’.

In high school, determined to pursue fashion illustration as a career, Trippeer took pre-college courses in fashion design at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Parsons School of Design, Trippeer expanded her focus of study ‘beyond simply being an illustrator and learn[ed] how to master garment construction’ (ibid). Following her studies, she launched her career in New York. Trippeer worked her way up the corporate fashion ladder, eventually designing for brands such as Liz Claiborne and Target. Like Ballard, she left the corporate design world due to her growing concerns about the industry’s ‘exploitative design practices’ (ibid). Aiming to make a positive impact on the fashion industry, Trippeer reoriented her career towards fashion education: ‘Determined that we could do better, I had a desire to take what I had learned about the industry and apply it toward becoming a fashion educator’ (ibid). She received her M.F.A. in Design Research in 2015 from the University of North Texas, and in 2017 she began teaching at FIT in New York. In 2019, she returned to the University of North Texas to teach fashion design, where she emphasises to her students the importance of drawing as a method for iterative design and concept generation.

This exploration of reader experiences highlights the important role that recollective memory can play in research about participatory culture in comics, offering a more comprehensive look into the reciprocal relationship between comic and reader. In this case, remembering Misty’s participatory culture prompted Farkas, Ballard, and Trippeer to trace the long-term effects of their engagement with Misty on their lives and careers.Footnote ⁸ Misty allowed these readers to see their own work directly shape the collectivised text of a professionally produced and widely distributed comic book magazine.

This was a personally empowering experience for all these readers. It not only motivated them to pursue their lifelong creative interests but also informed the personal philosophies that have guided their careers and life choices. Granted, these readers are only three of the hundreds who participated in Misty’s creation, and certainly, many readers who submitted did not pursue creative vocations. However, highlighting the memories of these successful contributors illustrates the potential of Misty’s participatory culture to encourage and foster creativity and to have long-lasting effects on readers’ lives.