March 19, 2025

March 30th marks ten years that "Phoebe and Her Unicorn" has been in newspaper syndication.

"Phoebe and Her Unicorn" will continue for as long as I have a brain, eyes, and a functioning drawing hand. There will be new books for decades.

I thought I’d reassure people of that, before dropping the following news: I’m bringing the daily newspaper strip to an end.

The Sunday comics will continue, but as of March 30, 2025, I’m finished with daily comic strips.

And just as, in the strip, Phoebe has moved to a new house, she’s also moving to a new medium: graphic novels.

She’s been there before: in addition to the many books that are collections of strips, two (The Magic Storm and Unicorn Theater) are graphic novels written on their own, and probably a template for what’s to come.

And the truth is, books are where “Phoebe and Her Unicorn” has been most successful. I’m in a couple hundred newspapers. Meanwhile I’ve sold nearly 5 million books. And books are most of my income. If the marketplace is speaking, it’s telling me people want books. So I'm going to just do that.

I’ve known for a few years now that that’s where this was eventually headed.

Of course, this was an emotional decision. I wanted to be a syndicated comic strip artist my whole life, for as long as I knew what one was. I was xeroxing my strip samples at Kinko’s and then mailing them to all the syndicates before I was 20. It was my unreachable dream for so long, until finally, in my 30s, I won a contest and got the opportunity to make my dream come true.

And it’s been everything I hoped for and more. The rare, almost unique, privilege of making a living drawing unicorns. Getting to meet, and feel welcomed by, so many of my comics heroes.

I would not trade it for anything. It's been a great honor.

The thing is, though, I’ve been drawing comic strips for a really long time. I started Ozy and Millie as a teenager, drew it for a decade, and now I’ve drawn “Phoebe and Her Unicorn” for 13 years. I’ve drawn many thousands of comic strips.

I feel ready for new challenges. I have ideas for new long-form stories about Phoebe and Marigold that I’m super eager to write! And I’ll have time for other projects, too. My long-delayed graphic memoir. A long-gestating graphic novel with my sister. A book about Ozy and Milo. New challenges and projects I haven’t even thought of yet.

But Phoebe and Marigold will remain the stars. That’s the biggest thing I want to communicate. They aren’t going anywhere!

Thank you to everyone who’s read the strip all these years, to all the newspapers who kept running it, and to Andrews McMeel for being a great syndicate. They’re a great publisher too, and they’ll be getting a lot more unicorn books from me before this is done.

Onward!

With sparkles,

Dana Simpson

February 24, 2025

I'll be touring to bookstores, schools, and libraries in early April. Keep an eye on the calendar above for dates as they become available!

June 24, 2024

An anthology I'm in, The Out Side: Trans and Nonbinary Comics, is up for an Eisner for Best Anthology. Yay! I'm really proud of my contribution, and everyone else's are also beautiful. It's a lovely book.

June 1, 2024

(Have I really not updated this blog in a year? I think of myself as chattier than that.)

Last year it was the divisional award for newspaper comics. This year I'm nominated for the big one: Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

It's Dana! She got nominated for a Reuben award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip!

April 19, 2023

In a new video, Dana reads six storylines from her new book, Punk Rock Unicorn.

October 30, 2022

Just in time for Halloween, I read the halloween party story from Unicorn Crossing.