Sugar Ninjas

Sugar Ninjas is a dual anthology of work by female cartoonists. Each issue has two volumes, the mature-content "Spicy" and the all-ages "Sweet".

History[]

The anthology was founded by Professor Bob Pendarvis, who taught the first comics art class at the Savannah College of Art and Design, going on to create and co-found their very successful Sequential Art BFA and MFA degree programs. He was frustrated with how female students would have to defend their more feminine styles and interests, and how the male students continually failed to recognize how the history of American comics was filled with sexism, both on and off the pages. In his Survey of Sequential Art class, Pendarvais would foster discussion of how both conscious and unconscious sexism in society had contributed to the relative dearth of prominent female creators.

He founded the Sugar Ninjas to showcase the work of his female students of the sequential arts, including comic books, comic strips, picture books, and animation, as well as female artists of other fields, such as photography and painting. However, he was let go after more than 18 years at SCAD before he could finish assembling the first volume. Meanwhile, some of the students asked if their friends could submit work, and it soon expanded beyond SCAD students.

Working with his first assistant, Zelda Ravenel, he decided to have two separate books for each volume, "Sweet", featuring relatively family-friendly material, and "Spicy", aimed at “mature” readers. All of the work contained in each volume is copyrighted exclusively by the creators, and the books are sold at printing cost only.

The Sugar Ninjas features work by women who have worked for mainstream companies (such as Rebekah Isaacs), popular webcomic creators (Elena Barbarich, Jennie Breeden, Danielle Corsetto, and Becky Dreisdadt), and small press publishers. The books contain a variety of genres, and the content is directed solely by the individual desires and visions of the creators.

Pendarvis hopes to eventually be able to host a "Sugarcon" convention that would include Sugar Ninjas and other female artist/writers, as well as female-friendly publishers and editors. His current assistant editor for both the website and the books is Gally Articola, a colorist and refurbisher for the Official Marvel Handbooks.

The Title[]

Pendarvis originally planned on doing one huge book that would be named "Sugar & Spice"-- the idea being that girls can write and draw sweet and adorable art and stories, but they can also create material that is anything but. One of his students, Tiffany "Muffin" Woicikowfski, mentioned "sugar ninjas and spicy pirates", and it occurred to him that "sugar ninjas" summed up the whole idea: that these talented girls are "hidden" in plain sight, waiting for the right time to make their presence known to the comics community at large, hence their motto:

“Like their ancient warrior-assassin counterparts, the SUGAR NINJAS have lived and worked virtually unnoticed by their male peers in the comics community, waiting patiently for just the right moment…TO MAKE THEIR MARK!”^[1]