Comics
To pursue her interest in comics, Seda took a job as a janitor at the San Francisco publisher Last Gasp, and soon after became a bookkeeper there.[6] (This work was primarily viewed as a financial necessity to Seda, her true passion being the "pure arts.") Seda worked exclusively night hours and was known as "The Vampire Bookkeeper."[5]
Her first published comics work was a strip titled "Bloods in Space", written by Kevin Lambert, which appeared in Robert Crumb's anthology magazine Weirdo, issue #2, in 1981. Seda's comic work was centered around taboo sexual subject matters, including swinging and bestiality. Her work intended to push boundaries that individuals upheld as communal prejudices. The reaction of Seda's audience is "less an affirmation of community standards than a kind of self-righteous consumerism."[7] She submitted her work under the pen name "David Seda" but was published in the magazine under her true name. She was subsequently published in Wimmen's Comix, San Francisco Comic Book, Viper, Yellow Silk, Prime Cuts, Cannibal Romance, Weird Smut Comix, Tits & Clits, Twisted Sisters, and her solo book Lonely Nights Comics (which was banned in England upon its release).[8]
In 1999, her work was collected in the book Dori Stories, which also includes memorial tributes. This body of work almost was not published due to legal troubles regarding the reproduction of Seda's work.[9] Ultimately, Dori Stories won a 2000 Firecracker Alternative Book Award in the Special Recognition/Wildcard Category "Books about Gap-Toothed Deceased Female Cartoonists with Smelly Dogs".[10]
In 1988, Last Gasp established the Dori Seda Memorial Award for Women. The first recipient was Carol Tyler.[11]
Film
Seda was featured in the short documentary Gap-Toothed Women by Les Blank, a tribute to women with the commonality of a gap between their two front teeth. Seda was originally cut from the film, as her interview answers were seen as bland, so Seda requested that she be given a second chance and preplanned a response that would gain greater reaction.[5] Seda explained how she was not inherently "valuable" because she was not beautiful because of her "funny teeth." She attributed her value to the work she had done in spite of her gap saying, she was "kind of glad that [her] teeth are like this, because if I had nice straight teeth, I might never have done anything.”[12] She created a poster for the film.[13]
