The incredible illustrator

There's a stereotype that female comic book artists create introspective, personal work about relationships or their childhoods. Doraville resident Stephanie Gladden goes to the opposite extreme by specializing in over-the-top, cartoonish slapstick. "Because I want to draw funny, goofy stuff, even other women cartoonists don't know what to do with me," she says. When Gladden exclaims, "I'm going to have Screwy Squirrel beat up dogs with a baseball bat!" she confounds the expectation for cartoonists of her gender.

Think of any major cartoon character to emerge in the last 10 years, and Gladden has probably drawn their comic book incarnations, including The Simpsons, Ren & Stimpy, The Powerpuff Girls and Looney Tunes tie-ins, as well as her short-lived original funny-animal book Hopster's Tracks. "My husband counted it up recently, and I was astonished to discover that I've drawn 656 pages -- although that's probably average for comic book illustrators."

Traditionally, comic books have been made by guys, for guys, so Gladden's work runs contrary to expectations. She grew up in conservative Hattiesburg, Miss., and moved here in 1987 to attend the Atlanta College of Art. "When I came to Atlanta, this urban, supposedly more open-minded environment, I started hearing, 'You know, women don't really draw comics -- or draw well in general.'"

But even though women cartoonists like herself have gradually found more acceptance in the comic book industry, they can't escape the overall downturns in the market. "Comics jobs started drying up around 1999," she says. "In the 1980s and '90s there was a mentality that 'Comics aren't just for kids any more,' but it gradually became 'Comics aren't for kids -- at all.' That hit the kind of comics I did very hard."

Gladden currently works a day job at the Cartoon Network's licensing department, but she stays involved in comics. She's enjoying a high-profile job penciling Sweatshop, DC's six-issue parody of the newspaper comic strip business written by Gen-X favorite Peter Bagge. Gladden is also developing a Web-based comic called "Cricket and Plato" about a young girl and her Stegosaurus.

Gladden plans to have "Cricket and Plato" online by October, and she may do a print version of the comic if it generates enough interest -- and she can fit it in her schedule. "The awful thing about comics is, you have to do it all yourself. The good thing about them is, you get to do it all yourself!"