Kate Charlesworth

Kate Charlesworth, originally from Barnsley, South Yorkshire is a cartoonist and illustrator living and working in Leith, Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, indie comics, exhibitions and electronic media, plus storyboards for Hot Animation and Aardman Animations.

Long in the planning and making, Kate’s acclaimed LGBTQI+history/personal memoir Sensible Footwear – A Girl’s Guide was published by Myriad in 2019. In 2020 it was followed by a French edition, A Pink Story – Mon Manuel LGBTQI+ (Casterman) and in 2023 by a German edition, United Queerdom (Carlsen), which in 2024 won the Max und Moritz award for Best Factual Comic at the 21st International Comic Salon Erlangen.

At the core of her work are feminism and LGBTQI+ lives, issues and history, which Kate represents with compassion and humour. Her first cartoons and comics were drawn in the 1970s for the UK lesbian feminist magazine Sappho. Along with David Shenton, she was one of a handful of queer cartoonists accidentally documenting queer history in the ‘Golden Age’ of Lesbian and Gay publishing – and beyond.

Kate’s subject matter has encompassed the natural world, human society and the passing scene – including the long-running Life the Universe and (Almost) Everything for New Scientist magazine, and Millenium Basin for The Guardian. Her work for the 1987 comics anthology Strip Aids, published to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, was Kate’s gateway to the world of indie comics, where she contributed to many more anthologies. She subsequently collaborated with Mary and Bryan Talbot, illustrating the award-winning 2014 graphic novel, Sally Heathcote – Suffragette (Jonathan Cape).

She is currently working on her second graphic novel The House of (In)Visible Women.

Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide is out now. Her website is www.katecharlesworth.com

Photo of Kate Charlesworth © Gunter Glücklich Photography