Gladys Parker was an American female comic artist of the 1920s and 1930s. She drew 'Gay and her Gang', a witty comic strip about the so-called "flappers": stylish, wise-cracking young women of the roaring twenties. She took over the one-panel cartoon 'Flapper Fanny' from Ethel Hays in 1932, and gave it a more cartoony style. At the same time, Ms. Parker drew a comic strip series for Lux soap.
During the second World War, Gladys Parker came up with 'Mopsy', a girl who made her own contribution to the war effort by appearing as a nurse, soldier or engineer. 'Mopsy' ran from 1939 until 1965. Gladys Parker also took over the war-strip 'Flyin' Jenny' from Russell Keaton in 1942, until 1944, when his assistant Marc Swayze took over.
Legacy
Together with Dot Cochran, Ethel Hays, Virginia Huget, Fay King, Virginia Krausmann and Dorothy Urfer, Gladys Parker counts as a pioneer of female cartooning, gracing newspaper pages of the 1920s and 1930s with sophisticated and witty society girls.