Carol Lay

Carol Lay (born 1952) is an American alternative cartoonist best known for her long-running weekly comic strip *Story Minute*, which later evolved into *Way Lay* and ran for nearly two decades in alternative weeklies such as *LA Weekly*, the *NY Press*, and on *Salon*. Based in Los Angeles, Lay has drawn professionally since the 1970s, with her strips and illustrations appearing in *Entertainment Weekly*, *Mad*, *Newsweek*, *The New York Times*, *The Wall Street Journal*, and *The New Yorker*. Her style blends a clean, expressive line with wry, observational humor and a touch of surrealism. Over her career, she has contributed to over 60 comic issues, with notable work on *Simpsons Comics*, *Good Girls*, *Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!*, and the anthology *Twisted Sisters Comics*. Lay’s influence is felt in her sustained, independent voice within alternative comics and her ability to move between newspaper strips, magazine work, and mainstream licensed titles. She remains active in the field, with credits spanning from 1978 into the 2020s.