On learning of her death, Jules Feiffer told the New York Times she was the "mother superior to cartoonists."
As a child, she collected comic books rather than the dolls favored by other girls of her age.
She graduated from UCLA, and after running a dress shop she moved to Chicago, taking a low-level staff job with Playboy in the late 1960s.
[1] Kliban's Cat became a best-selling book the next year, and spawned a wide range of popular merchandise.
After Stephen's death in 1993, she married Alan Trustman, a screenwriter who is best known for The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt.