Barbara Fiske Calhoun (born Isabelle Daniel Hall; September 9, 1919 – April 28, 2014) was an American cartoonist and painter, one of the few female creators from the Golden Age of Comic Books.
[4] Living in the West Village, she met her husband-to-be, writer and playwright Irving Fiske, who suggested that she change her name to "Barbara Hall," which she did.
[6] Hall also created the Blonde Bomber (aka Honey Blake), a newsreel camerawoman, chemist, and crime-fighter with a sidekick named Jimmy Slapso.
On April 10, 1946, she and her husband, both extremely unconventional bohemian intellectuals, used wedding money to buy the farm in Rochester that later became the artist's retreat and "hippie commune" called Quarry Hill Creative Center.
Homeowners sign an agreement with Lyman Hall Inc., the current owner of the land, that it belongs to the Fiske family and the corporation, And they pay a site fee.
There Barbara showed her paintings, along with those of others, and Irving began to give public talks on Tantra, Zen, Sufism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and atheism, among many other things.
Hundreds of young people, including many who became well-known, such as Art Spiegelman (who dated the Fiskes’ daughter Isabella)[8] and Stephen Huneck, began to visit Quarry Hill Creative Center.
With the assistance of her son, William, and others, Barbara created a corporation to own the land, Lyman Hall, Inc.[10] In 1989, she married Dr. Donald Calhoun, a Quaker writer and sociology professor who had been her mentor at Vermont College.
Ill health and disability led her to enter Brookside Nursing Home in White River Junction, Vermont, where she died April 28, 2014.