Biography

Erika Lopez

by Maggie Cage,

Synopsis

Erika Lopez is an American Cartoonist, a novelist as well as a performance artist. She is best known for the characters of "The Welfare Queen" and “Grandma Lopez” which was created after she started to get welfare after her arguments with Schuster and Simon.

Early life and education

Erika Lopez was born in 1968 in New York City. She belongs to white ethnicity and holds an American nationality.

Erika is the daughter of Puerto Rican father, Rafel Lopez-Sanchez. Her mother, Deborah Reese is of German-American descent. Both of her parents are civil rights activists. Her parents divorced when she and her sister were very small.

Her father tried to kidnap them many times after the divorce. She moved with her mother and sister to different places during that time including West Virginia, Chicago, Ma s sachusetts, New York to prevent being caught by her father.

Erika was raised in Quaker by her mother and her lesbian partner and completed her high school there. She then joined Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and later moved to Moore College of Art and Design. She has also take advance arts course from the University of the Arts.

Career

Erika moved to San Francisco to pursue her career in arts and had to struggle a lot in her early days. She then worked for Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and was paid $2500 to write.

Erika published a cartoon book named Lap Dancing for Mommy in 1997 and furthermore published two novels. They Call Me Mad Dog! And Hoochie Mama: The Other White Meat with Simon & Schuster in 1998 and 2001 respectively.

She founded a publishing company, Monster Girl Media uniting with James Swanson, Kamala Lopez, and Jeffrey Hicken. They published their first book The Girl Must Die: A Monster Girl Memoir in 2010 and even released a same type of book The Girl Must Die: 18 Postcards later.

Erika is also recognized as the characters of Grandma Lopez and The Welfare Queen. These characters are the part of a piece Nothing Left but the Smell: A Republican on Welfare which she has performed in various locations.

Personal Life

Erika Lopez is a bisexual woman and is known for speaking openly about her bisexuality. She is also known for her advocacy of GLBT issues. She has also published her semi-autobiographical trilogy Flaming Iguanas: An All-Girl Road Novel Thing where she has revealed about her bisexuality.

Erika is not married yet and is known to be single at present. However, she was rumored to have an affair with Simon & Schuster’s publisher, David Rosenthal. There was also news that they had kissed each other and made up. But, Erika later mentioned Rosenthal as her friend and her ‘maker.'

Net worth

The bisexual, beautiful cartoonist, Erika Lopez has earned the lucrative amount of salary, and her net worth is high. However, her current net worth has not been disclosed yet.

Erika also active in social sites, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.