Katherine Collins facts for kids

Katherine Shannon Collins is a talented Canadian cartoonist and writer. She is also known as a media personality and stage performer. Katherine Collins created the popular newspaper comic strip Neil the Horse, which was published from 1975 to 1991.

Early Life and Influences

Katherine Collins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 6, 1947. Her birth name was Arnold Alexander Saba, Jr. She chose her current name from her great-grandmother, Mary Adda "Dolly" Collins, who was also a painter, writer, and illustrator. Katherine's mother was a cartoonist and comics collector. She helped Katherine develop an interest in comics from a young age.

Some of Katherine's earliest inspirations were the famous cartoonists Carl Barks and Milton Caniff. She collected their comics throughout the 1950s. Later, in the late 1960s, she started reading underground comics. She enjoyed the work of artists like Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, Skip Williamson, Jay Lynch, and Trina Robbins. Growing up in Canada, she was exposed to both American and British comics.

Career Highlights

Creating Neil the Horse

Katherine Collins is most famous for creating Neil the Horse. This comic series first appeared in Canadian newspapers from 1975 to 1982. It was distributed by Great Lakes Publishing. Later, Neil the Horse was published as a comic book series. There were fifteen issues released between 1983 and 1988 by Aardvark-Vanaheim and Renegade Press.

Katherine tried to continue the comic in print, but it was not successful. There were also plans to turn Neil the Horse into a film or television show with Zorro Productions, but these projects did not happen.

Many people feel that Neil the Horse has a nostalgic feel, reminding them of older comics. However, Katherine Collins has said that she saw her comics as a fresh and different way to look at real life.

Recent Recognition

In recent years, Katherine Collins's work has become popular again. In 2017, Conundrum Press released 'The Collected Neil the Horse.' This special book includes all fifteen comic book issues of Neil the Horse. It also features the weekly newspaper strips and other important works from her career.

Awards and Honors

Katherine Collins has received several important awards for her contributions to comics.

• In 1983, she won an Inkpot Award. This award has also been given to other well-known comics artists like Robert Crumb (1989) and Neil Gaiman (1991).
• In 2013, Collins was added to the Joe Shuster Award Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame. She sent a video message for the ceremony.
• In 2017, she was inducted into the "Giants of the North" hall of fame by the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning.

Personal Journey

Katherine Collins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since 1993, she has identified as a transgender woman.

She faced some health challenges. In 2008, she shared that she was recovering from leukemia, a type of cancer.