Stephanie McMillan decided at age ten that she would become a cartoonist, and spent much of grade school reading Peanuts and copying the characters. She created a short animated film during the summer after high school at the film studio near Bonn, Germany that had been founded by her grandfather, animator Hans Fischerkoesen (Das Loch im Westen and Die Vervitterte Melodie). Awakening in high school to the dangers of nuclear war, she went on to work for many years as an activist against imperialism and for social justice issues.

Stephanie graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 1987 with a BFA in film, studying animation under Richard Protovin and John Canemaker. During this time she worked painting cels for an animated motivational film for Huggies, and as an intern for stop-motion animator Jane Aaron. She received an award for her student film.

In 1992 she was hired by a weekly magazine as an editorial assistant and offered her first professional cartooning opportunity. In 1999 she began self-syndicating her cartoons, plus providing exclusive comic features and illustrations. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications worldwide, including the Los Angeles Times, Daily Beast, Yes! Magazine, New Internationalist, Comic Relief, Amarillo Globe-News, Funny Times, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Currently her daily comic strip Minimum Security is syndicated online by United Media’s comics.com. She also draws and self-syndicates a weekly editorial cartoon, Code Green.

A collection of her cartoons, Attitude Presents Minimum Security was published in 2005 by NBM Publishing. She co-created, with writer Derrick Jensen, a graphic novel As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial (2007, Seven Stories). Her work is also included in Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists (2002), as well as in various textbooks, anthologies, and several books in the Opposing Viewpoints series by Gale Publishing Group.

Her cartoons have been included in exhibits at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (New York), the San Francisco Comic Art Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), and the Institute for Policy Studies (Washington, DC), among other venues.

Professional Organizations:

* AAEC (Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, since 2007)
* Cartoonists With Attitude (founding member, since 2006)

Awards:

* First Place, Excellence in Postal Union Journalism, APWU National Postal Press Association, 2003 and 2005
* Honorable Mention, Creative Resistance Contest, Adbusters, 2000
* First Place, General Excellence in Editorial Cartooning, Florida Press Club, 1997 and 1994
* Second Place, General Excellence in Artist Illustration, Florida Press Club, 1996