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The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed a revolution in comedy and humor that presaged the politics and counterculture of the generation of revolt. At this very moment stand-up comics in the United States, from Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, to Mort Sahl, as well as the comedians of the British stage revue Beyond the Fringe, changed the face of comedy. They accomplished this shift in tandem chronologically with the rise of Pop Art and the growth of happenings and performative practices. R. Crumb has famously credited Lenny Bruce with giving him the courage to shift styles and freely express his perverse fantasies in his art. But what about the women? Who were the women comedians of the postwar era? Mrs Maisel invokes Joan Rivers, but what about Moms Mabley whom Rosalyn Drexler found “nasty in the best sense of the word.” Rivers too has had a following in the visual arts. Deborah Kass cites her as well as other Jewish comedians such as Totie Fields and Belle Barth as inspirational. Jo Anna Isaak and others have charted the “radical power of women’s laughter,” and this panel seeks to bring stand-up comedy into the mix. It presents papers on women comedians or artists inspired by them. While the panel will address postwar topics in the United States, it is not limited to that time frame or country. Broader discussions of the comedic or more targeted papers are included.