Dorothea Antoinette "Dori" Seda (22 June 1951 – February 25, 1988) was an artist best known for her underground comix work in the 1980s. She occasionally used the pen name "Sylvia Silicosis." Her comics combined exaggerated fantasy and ribald humor with documentation of her life in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.

Career

Fine Arts

Seda was originally a painter and ceramics artist, graduating from Illinois State University with a B.A. in art. Seda was creating a lot of fine arts content in 1979 and 1980. Some of her notable art works include Punch Bowl (with cups and ladle), The Wreck in Heaven, Vibrator with 3 Attachments for ceramics and Jaded Fish and The Vampire Painting for acrylic on canvas. (This work was primarily viewed as a financial necessity to Seda, her true passion being the "pure arts.") Seda worked exclusively night hours and was known as "The Vampire Bookkeeper." She submitted her work under the pen name "David Seda" but was published in the magazine under her true name. She was subsequently published in Wimmen's Comix, San Francisco Comic Book, Viper, Yellow Silk, Prime Cuts, Cannibal Romance, Weird Smut Comix, Tits & Clits, Twisted Sisters, and her solo book Lonely Nights Comics (which was banned in England upon its release).

In 1999, her work was collected in the book Dori Stories, which also includes memorial tributes. This body of work almost was not published due to legal troubles regarding the reproduction of Seda's work. Ultimately, Dori Stories won a 2000 Firecracker Alternative Book Award in the Special Recognition/Wildcard Category "Books about Gap-Toothed Deceased Female Cartoonists with Smelly Dogs".

In 1988, Last Gasp established the Dori Seda Memorial Award for Women. The first recipient was Carol Tyler.

Film

Seda was featured in the short documentary Gap-Toothed Women by Les Blank, a tribute to women with the commonality of a gap between their two front teeth. Seda was originally cut from the film, as her interview answers were seen as bland, so Seda requested that she be given a second chance and preplanned a response that would gain greater reaction. She created a poster for the film.

Seda died at age 37