Dana Simpson

Dana Claire Simpson is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the comic Phoebe and her Unicorn, as well as the long-running webcomic Ozy and Millie. Other works created by Simpson include the political commentary cartoon I Drew This and the alternate reality drama comic Raine Dog.

Biography Simpson was born in Pullman, Washington, and then lived in the Seattle area for most of her life. She is a graduate of The Evergreen State College.

Simpson considered herself an artist from an early age, drawing comic strips as young as five years old as part of making her own homemade newspaper. As she grew up, she began drawing inspiration from Peanuts, The Simpsons and Pogo.

In her 20s, she came out as transgender.

I Drew This Simpson's second published comic strip, I Drew This, was concerned mainly about politics, from a liberal perspective. It is semi-autobiographical, in that one of the main characters is the author (the other is Joe, the Liberal Eagle) and its focus is often the author's own musings. I Drew This began life in the Washington State University Daily Evergreen in January 2004, while Simpson was attending graduate school. Like Ozy and Millie, this comic is part of the webcomics portal Keenspot, beginning November 2006. Material from I Drew This was included in Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists. The May 16, 2005 edition, "Teaching Gravity", featured the first reference to the theory of intelligent falling. insert title here and I Drew This (a complete collection of the strips) are both available for purchase on Lulu. On January 20, 2009, the web comic was officially canceled, and the last strip was published prior to that, on January 12, 2009.

Phoebe and Her Unicorn

Simpson's most popular work commenced in 2012 as a web comic and continued as a daily comic strip until March 30, 2025. It continues in graphic novel format as of February 2026.

Other work

On January 16, 2009, Simpson posted the first page of Raine Dog, a graphic novel which follows an anthropomorphic dog living among humans with other recently liberated house dogs. The most recent update was in January 2010. Simpson abandoned the project "for the foreseeable future".

Simpson announced that she is writing and illustrating a book about her transition, targeted for middle-school students, titled Only You're Different. She also illustrated a picture book, I'm Not a Girl, written by Maddox Lyons, a 12-year-old transgender boy.

Awards

Scripps-Howard Foundation Charles M. Schulz College Cartoonist Award, 1998: named finalist for Phoebe and Her Unicorn: A Heavenly Nostrils Chronicle Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award for Unicorn on a Roll