This chapter illustrates how norm-critical perspectives can be adapted into sociohistorical research of comics and suggests that for us to understand comics, also as a form of pedagogical resource, we need to look not only at the comics works themselves, but also at the conditions of production, distribution and consumption as well as the intersecting power structures that permeate these processes. Norms and the different ways they are upheld and questioned are part and parcel of social life, including the comics world with its structures, practices, actors and texts. Taking a diachronic approach to Finnish comics history, the chapter concentrates on the prerequisites of comics work through an intersectional lens of gender and language. With five case studies of Swedish-language women cartoonists, spanning from the 1850s until today, the chapter asks: what kind of publishing routes have they found for their comics, what kind of role does comics work play in their overall artistic careers, and how have power relations of gender and language played into their comics work.