Category Archives: Library News

Important Closing Dates: Cartoon Library Move to Sullivant Hall

The time has nearly come! After years of dreaming and scheming, the Cartoon Library’s new home in Sullivant Hall is just a few short months away from being ready for our expansion. We’ll be closing our doors to the public in the coming weeks, and readying our collection for the big move through the summer.

During the preparations, the Cartoon Library & Museum will need to temporarily stop services for our patrons. Here is a list of important dates to be aware of if you plan a visit to the library or use our reproduction services:

Currently: No longer accepting requests for group tours through the Summer

May 31: Last day we will accept digital image requests and photocopy requests

May 31–July 12:  Reading room will be open to researchers by limited appointment only (please contact the library: cartoons@osu.edu) and to view the exhibition, Alternate Views: Perspectives on the American Civil War

July 15–September 6: Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is CLOSED to all visitors and patrons

We can’t wait to see you again in the Fall! If you have any questions about the dates above, please contact us at cartoons@osu.edu.

…and don’t forget to mark your calendars for our Grand Opening Festival of Cartoon Art, November 14th-17th 2013!
Details coming soon.

NEW EXHIBIT – Alternate Views: Perspectives on the American Civil War

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Start Date: May 13, 2013
Through: July 12, 2013
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Location: Reading Room Gallery – 27 W. 17th Avenue Mall

 

The 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War is commemorated in this exhibition which highlights the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s growing collection of nineteenth century prints. Editorial cartoons were not published in newspapers until after the Civil War when technology made it possible to publish them economically in a timely way. Prior to that, broadsheet prints – etchings, engravings and lithographs – were the means cartoonists used for political commentary. Popular magazines such as Harper’s Weekly relied on wood engravings to provide illustrations.

Both sides of the conflict are represented in Alternate Views. As was true during the war, most of the materials represent the views of Union supporters. There was only one cartoonist who published works favoring of the Confederate States of America:  Adelbert Volck, who published under the pseudonym V. Blada. Selected examples of his etchings are included in the exhibition.

The complexity of many of the works displayed in this exhibition is striking. Intricate visual metaphors demand close reading in order to comprehend the meaning of the cartoon. These images were produced when the pace of life was much different. These were intended to be read, reread, and then, read again. When we step back in time to consider these works, their messages are clear, passions are heated, and a complex period in our history is revealed.

Curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell, Professor Emerita, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

This will be the final exhibit in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s current space, until re-opening in the Fall of 2013 in Sullivant Hall.

Special Announcement: Guide To Multicultural Resources has been launched!

Here at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, we’re thrilled to announce that with the help of our steadfast volunteer Joe Miller who compiled all of this information, we have just launched our Guide To Multicultural Resources!

Check ‘em out. This resource highlights work in comics and cartooning that has been done by African Americans, Latino Americans, and Asian Americans. Each guide is presented in two different organizational structures containing the same content, in order to facilitate varying researcher needs. The first section of each guide is organized by material type (biographical files, original art, archival collections, bound volumes, comic books, online resources, and more), and the second is organized alphabetically by creator.

The guides do not include international or foreign language materials in our collection, although we do have a lot of those materials as well.

Our intention is to emphasize the incredible work that has been done by minorities in the world of comics, and if any readers or researchers have suggested additions or comments on the guides’ organization, we encourage you to get in touch!

New Exhibit: A.B. Walker’s World

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Alanson Burton Walker was a very successful magazine cartoonist working at the beginning of 20th century.  His work was much in demand and he drew for all the important magazines of the time–Life, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Evening Post, Judge and Collier’s–where he created gentle, wry cartoons on issues of the day.

Walker was born in Binghampton, New York on November 19, 1878, attended Buffalo Central High School, and later Rochester University from which he graduated in 1897. He spent the next four years taking classes at the Art Students League in New York, studying under Frank Vincent DuMond.  His brother William H. Walker, also a cartoonist, became the chief editorial cartoonist for Life at the end of the 1890s.  Both brothers lived and worked in Flushing, New York.  A. B. Walker died of a heart attack while shoveling snow on January 22, 1947.

Most of the work on display dates from 1909-1913 and was created by Walker while he was in his early thirties.  All were drawn for Harper’s Magazine and focus on topics of the time:  changes in transportation (automobiles and aeronautics); observations on women and women’s suffrage; and love and marriage.  Walker’s work captures the preoccupations of early 20th century life with wit and charm.  His cartoons, with their fluid lines and gentle humor, remain as pleasing to us today as they were to the audience he created them for a century ago.

These cartoons form part of the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection and were donated by A. B. Walker’s son and his wife, Keith and Mary Lou Walker.

Curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell, Professor Emerita, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and Ann Lennon, Project Registrar, International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection.

This is our second-to-last show in our current space, and will be on view until April 26th.
We hope you will come by and check it out!

Congratulations to Meredith Spano!

We’re tickled to highlight student employee Meredith Spano on the blog today, who has recently hit the 100 mark in processing originals of continuing feature comic strip titles from our International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection (IMCA)! The IMCA collection was transferred to us in 2008 from Mort Walker, for whom one of our galleries in the new Sullivant Hall facility will be named. The collection contains thousands of priceless original cartoons from around the world, as well as books and artifacts related to all of the genres of cartoon art.

Student employee champion, Meredith Spano.

Since Meredith’s start date here in October, 2010 Meredith has been hard at work in building finding aids for continuing features in IMCA, and the 100 titles that she has now processed have included over 40,000 pieces that have passed through her hands for cataloging.

The process starts with physical sorting- Meredith, as seen in the image below, pours through the hundreds upon hundreds of daily and weekly strips, and arranges them physically in chronological order, neatly and safely in our acid free archival storage boxes.

Student employee Meredith Spano, sorting IMCA originals into chronological order.

After arranging the series, she gets to work on building a spreadsheet for the individual title that is later turned into a finding aid. You can see what the end result looks like here. Each individual strip has been assigned a finding number, and is listed by its publication date.

Below, a small slice of the rows upon rows of the IMCA collection boxes once they have been processed!

International Museum of Cartoon Art processed features by finding number

Meredith is double majoring in Arabic and International Studies, and is a proud and prominent member of the OSU Ukelele Club. Although her favorite series to work on so far has been Dick Tracy, the other 99 titles she has tackled include Bringing Up Father, Blondie, Henry, The Gumps, Katzenjammer Kids, Tillie the Toiler, Steve Canyon, Smitty, Rip Kirby, Polly and Her Pals, Moon Mullins, L’il Abner, Jungle Jim, and many many more.  The Cartoon Library simply would not run if it weren’t for our incredible student employees- thank you so much for all of your hard work, Meredith!

A Visit to Fantagraphics in Seattle!

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During a recent trip out west, we had the pleasure of visiting the offices of one of our very favorite publishers, Fantagraphics!

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Visiting Curator Caitlin McGurk out on the front porch of the Fantagraphics HQ, in Seattle plaid.

Yes, that’s right, if you didn’t know it before you know it now- the Fantagraphics HQ is actually located in a snug red house, in the suburbs of Seattle. As seen depicted here by Pat Moriarity in his book Popcorn Pimps, another delightful cartoonist we met along this trip.

Detail of Pat Moriarity’s drawing of Fantagraphics/The Comics Journal offices, from his 1996 book “Popcorn Pimps”. Property of Pat Moriarity

We were greeted by the lovely and beloved Jen Vaughn, who came aboard at Fantagraphics just a few months ago as their Marketing and Outreach Coordinator and is already clearly a staple in the team. In fact, on her way out to take the job Jen toured the Cartoon Library which she wrote about for Fantagraphics here.

Fantagraphics Marketing and Outreach Coordinator Jen Vaughn, giving me a tour of their library stacks.

As with many of us that work in the ever-developing business of comics, Jen’s position involves a little bit of everything- from reading Roy Crane notes to his ghost artist for legibility one day, to traveling to conventions all over the country to staff the Fantagraphics table, to working on reading guides or the fake ads in their new Basil Wolverton Spacehawk mini-comic.

Fantagraphics has long been a friend of the Cartoon Library, as they often use our materials for their reprint books and special collections. Below, a few of the most recent books that Fantagraphics has put out over the past few years that we assisted with or which include pieces from our collection.

“Pogo Vol. 1″, “Nancy is Happy: Dailies 1943-1945″ and “Naked Cartoonists” are three of many Fantagraphics books that the Cartoon Library assisted with.

 

 

 

 

The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art collection is one of the most frequently used, and Bill Blackbeard often worked closely with Fantagraphics during his life to write introductions and edit various collections that used his materials. The Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Collection of cartoonist self-caricatures resides here, and Rosie’s private collection provided the nude cartoonist self-caricatures for Naked Cartoonists.

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Student employee Random Cushing, scanning materials on the Better Light Super 8k Digital Scanner.

Fantagraphics lead designer Tony Ong, alongside the library of books that Fantagraphics has published.

 

 

 

When Fantagraphics begins work on a new collection, they use our catalog to search for what we have or tell us what they are looking for in a material request form, along with their payment for the scans. Then, using our incredible Better Light Super 8k Digital Scanner, one of our fabulous student workers will  generate very high resolution images for them, and upload them to the Fantagraphics server.

 

There are a number of overwhelmingly impressive library collections over at the Fantagraphics HQ, and one of the highlights was meeting with the great Kristy Valenti, Assistant Editor of The Comics Journal whose many responsibilities include managing them and their use. On the right, an image of book designer Tony Ong on the first floor of the house, with a portion of the library of Fantagraphics-published books for reference use in the office.

Fantagraphics Customer Service Representative Ian Burns alongside Office Manager Stephanie Hayes

 

 

Throughout the rest of our tour, I was able to ogle boxes and shelves full of the history of Fantagraphics and The Comics Journal, including tapes upon tapes of interviews that Gary Groth and others have conducted over the years (which Customer Service Rep Ian Burns has been tasked to digitize, from what I understand), as well as discs full of raw art for publications.

Interview recordings from The Comics Journal

Art backup files, with some names you may recognize.

The best part for any comics librarian, though, is seeing the actual stacks full of comics and graphics novels. Their big, basement library is used primarily by The Comics Journal for research, and contains materials largely from Gary Groth’s and Kim Thompson’s personal collections, as well as submissions, review copies, and more.

Just a portion of the Fantagraphics library of single issue comics.

The most impressive section is probably the floppy comics, separated by publisher and active vs inactive series. They have a substantial mini-comics collection as well, which is extremely useful for TCJ interviewers to get an idea of a cartoonists publishing history down to their early work.

A big thanks to Jen Vaughn, Kristy Valenti, Jacq Cohen, Eric Reynolds and Gary Groth for all taking time out to talk with me that day! The Fantagraphics house is truly one of those magical physical spaces that captures that familial essence of the comics world that makes it feel like home.

Last, but not least, Kim Thompson’s office dog.

Kim Thompson’s office dog, Ludwig.

LIBRARY NEWS: Tom Spurgeon Donates Foundational Gift to The Dylan Williams Collection

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The Ohio State University logo

Contact: Caitlin McGurk
The Ohio State University
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
27 W. 17th Avenue Mall
Columbus OH 43210-1343
614-292-0538
cartoons@osu.edu

For Immediate Release: October 16th, 2012

Tom Spurgeon Donates Foundational Gift to The Dylan Williams Collection

Tom Spurgeon, multiple Eisner and Harvey award-winning writer and editor of the Comics Reporter and previously the Managing and Executive Editor of The Comics Journal, has recently donated his personal collection of small press and self-published comics to The Dylan Williams Collection at The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Spurgeon’s generous donation contains roughly 1,300 mini-comics, definitively capturing the essence and trends of the 1990s and 2000s small press environment. As a result of Spurgeon’s vital involvement in the comics community through journalism and reviews, the collection contains early works of cartoonists including Julie Doucet, Ivan Brunetti, Lewis Trondheim, Tom Hart, Rachel Hartman, Craig Thompson, Mat Brinkman, Brian Chippendale and Leslie Stein.

As soon as The Dylan Williams Collection was announced, Spurgeon answered the call for donations. “I admired Dylan Williams personally and professionally. I think The Dylan Williams Collection is a fantastic way to honor his memory, and will come to provide a deeply valuable service to the creative communities Dylan cared about” says Spurgeon. “Institutions like the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum help maintain comics history in the most precious way imaginable: the direct archiving of the art form. I’m honored they would accept my modest collection as one of the first donations.” Spurgeon’s contribution gives direct substance to the scope of this one-month-old collection, and provides a strong foundation that will enhance its impact and importance.

“We were delighted when Tom offered us his incredible collection” says Curator Jenny Robb, “We would not have been able to acquire such a comprehensive representation without the help of someone so deeply rooted in the community.”

Since the bequest of the Jay Kennedy Collection of underground comix in 2008, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has become a leading resource for alternative, small press and self-published materials. The establishment of The Dylan Williams Collection furthers our mission to serve as the premier center for the preservation and study of cartoons and comics in the United States. To learn more, visit The Dylan Williams Collection Development Policy.

Spurgeon stated: “I urge all of my friends and all readers of The Comics Reporter with access to handmade and small press comics of the kind Dylan made, published, and promoted, to consider seeing if they might be of use donated to the Dylan Williams Collection.”

 

For more information please contact: Caitlin McGurk

mcgurk.17@osu.edu – 614-292-0538

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Visiting Curator Caitlin McGurk, sorting and re-housing Tom Spurgeon’s donation.

Sullivant Hall Hard Hat Tour

We came, we saw, we imagined walls where none have been built yet, hiked dusty staircases to our three heavenly cartoon museum galleries, stood stupefied and tried to envision where we would hang the limited edition full-color lithograph of Nancy dreaming about eating an ice cream cone.

The exterior of our new home, Sullivant Hall, facing N. High Street.

Curator Jenny Robb and architect Pete Confar look over the blueprints for the 2nd floor of the new Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum project.

Yes, our most recent hard hat tour of the Sullivant Hall building project was overwhelmingly exciting. Currently, demolition has been completed in the space, and construction begins soon.

Wandering across the North High Street pavilion from our current 6,000 sq-ft facility to the new just-under 30,000 sq-ft facility for the Cartoon Library felt like every metaphor from a college graduation to opening up a birthday gift or running into the living room on Christmas morning. The plans have been over 7 years in the making, and we’re finally just a year away, with something real to behold.

It is particularly thrilling to imagine what this must feel like for the invincible Lucy Caswell, our founding curator, to see this all start coming to fruition.

Founding Curator Lucy Shelton Caswell, in her hard hat lovingly decorated by cartoonist Jeff Smith.

 

 

 

Lucy, who started it all and has been here since Milton Caniff showed up with his collection in the 1970s, will finally see this long-deserved home for the Cartoon Library fully realized. After so many decades of dedicated hard work at preserving and promoting the comics form, the payoff is sure to feel beyond gratifying.

One of multiple collection storage areas.

 

 

 

 

The expansion of the Cartoon Library into Sullivant Hall offers us boundless potential. Not only will the space have three museum-quality exhibit galleries (complete with security guards, gorgeous custom made cases, and sleek benches), but every other aspect of what we do here will be enhanced.

The immensely expanded storage areas will allow us to consolidate an entire offsite facility we have been using for years. We will have a large seminar room dedicated to Will Eisner for programming as well as a conference room, giving us the potential for all new community outreach opportunities, event hosting, classes and more. We’ll have massive processing facilities for tackling the collection and comfortably accommodating more workers and volunteers. Extensive reading room space, with all new ergonomic furniture to make for the most agreeable researching experience possible. Exhibit preparation, framing, and encapsulation facilities. A gorgeous lobby (architect rendering below) with Billy Ireland’s drawing table prominently displayed in a glass case as you walk in.

Architectural rendering of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s north lobby.

Furthermore, we will have two large exquisitely hand-made stained-glass windows of Billy Ireland’s cartoons from The Passing Show, one of which will be back-lit and displayed at the entrance on North High Street, and the other of which will separate the reading room from the north entrance lobby.

This is indeed an exciting time for all of us here at the Cartoon Library, and we hope that all of you out there reading this can share in our glee, let alone join us for our opening festivities next fall! The three galleries in our new building will rotate three times per year, and we have some extremely riveting exhibits in the works. The opening show will be guest curated by the great Brian Walker, whose father’s International Museum of Cartoon Art collection resides here at OSU. Brian came in from Connecticut and spent the past week with us at the Cartoon Library choosing items for the show, and take it from us- it’s going to be something else.

Thank you to all who have supported us in this massive endeavor, we truly cannot wait to be able to give back with bigger and better programming and exhibits than ever before. Fall of 2013 can’t come quicker!

Library and Architecture staff in the soon-to-be home of the Cartoon Library

To see more images of the Sullivant Hall construction project, visit our Facebook page and check out the album “Sullivant Hall Hard Hat Tour”

Special Announcement: The Dylan Williams Collection

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On behalf of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, I’m thrilled to announce the establishment of The Dylan Williams Collection of small press and self published works. Please read the collection policy below for more information.

The Dylan Williams Collection Development Policy

The purpose of the Dylan Williams Collection at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is to strengthen and modernize our representation of the contemporary small press comics community. Although our collection currently features a diverse selection of historical self-published works, the Dylan Williams Collection will continually target and support emerging artists in the alternative comics field. We are proud to honor small press publisher, comics historian and cartoonist Dylan Williams with the namesake of this collection.

A. Namesake

Dylan Williams, Sparkplug Comics publisher, cartoonist, comics advocate and historian passed away on September 10th, 2011 after a long battle with Leukemia. In congruence with the one year anniversary of his death, the Dylan Williams Collection is to be established and announced at the 2012 Small Press Expo. This collection, curated to focus on items and publishers with a strong DIY ethic, is astutely named in Dylan’s honor as he was an essential part of the DIY community. Beyond his leadership as a small press publisher, Dylan was a constant advocate of under-appreciated artists, and a champion of raising awareness of cartoon art history among his contemporaries. As a friend and disciple of Bill Blackbeard, whose San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection resides here at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, a collection in Dylan’s name also serves as a fitting acknowledgement of that lineage. Though Dylan’s impact on the comics world is irreplaceable, his spirit lives on through the small press publishers that have risen in Sparkplug’s likeness, the artists who have thrived from his influence, and this collection which is intended to represent and support both as he would have done.

B. Focus and Scope of The Dylan Williams Collection

Complementing the preexisting collections of underground, alternative, and mainstream comics, the Dylan Williams Collection will focus on self-published and small press works, with an emphasis on hand-made books.

Gifts-in-kind, including personal work and collections, are welcome. Dylan Williams Collection acquisition funds will be used to purchase selective works from contemporary cartoonists that particularly represent the spirit of the Dylan Williams Collection or fill gaps in the BICL&M collection as a whole.

  1. The focus of the Dylan Williams Collection is on self-published works, including handmade books or those printed through local businesses. Although a strong emphasis will be placed on short form pamphlet style works (“mini-comics”), the collection may also contain self-published graphic novels.
  2. Works published by small-presses similar to and emulating the spirit of Sparkplug Comic Books. For example, materials published by small presses that are run by a small to single-person staff will take priority.
  3. Personal comics collections of self-published and small-press works, ranging from 1970 (Dylan Williams’ birth year) to the present.
  4. Original artwork from self-published work.
  5. Limited edition prints by self-publishing creators.
  6. Secondary sources. Self-published works about comics but are not comics (ie. reviews, essays, fanzines etc.)
  7. Micro-distributed materials. Primarily works that are distributed through non-traditional methods, including but not limited to mail-order, hand-selling at conventions, and small distributors will take priority.
  8. Small print runs for small-press work. Materials with a print run of over 3,000 copies will not be eligible.
  9. Works outside of the superhero genre will take priority.

For more information please contact: Caitlin McGurk

mcgurk.17@osu.edu – 614-292-0538

If you are attending the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland this weekend, please feel free to ask me about this collection! I will be representing the Cartoon Library on the following panel on Saturday, September 15th at 2pm.

Institution Building and Comics
2:00 pm | White Flint Auditorium

While comics have gained a great deal of cultural legitimacy over the past twenty years, comics, as a field, still lacks the institutional infrastructure enjoyed by other, more historically established art forms. Sara Duke (Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Art, Library of Congress), Tom Hart (Sequential Arts Workshop), Cheryl Kaminsky (AS220), and Caitlin McGurk (Ohio State University) will discuss the needs and challenges of comics-specific institution-building with moderator Tom Spurgeon.

New Exhibit! Line Dancing: A Survey of Dance in Cartoon Art

LINE DANCING

An Exhibition at The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum  

September 5-December 30, 2012       

Howie Schneider (1930-2007). Eek and Meek (detail), January 16, 1983. Ink on paper. Howie Schneider Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

This fall, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will be exhibiting some of the most finely choreographed cartoons on paper.  Line Dancing surveys dance in cartoon art to celebrate the renovation of Sullivant Hall, the future home of both the Department of Dance and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.  From a 1788 print of A Cotillion – the precursor to the American square dance – to modern works like a Jules Feiffer dancer and a jig from Charles Schulz’ Snoopy, these figures dance across history and across the page. Be it a literal depiction of dance as an event in time or dance employed as a metaphor, the works in this exhibit are moving, just like our library!

Line Dancing is part of Ohio State is Dancing, a campus-wide celebration throughout the Fall. Dance holdings from the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute will be featured in a companion exhibit, Dancing Dimensions: Movement through Time and Space, at the Thompson Library Gallery. These range from an 18th century French fan with dance scenes to a top hat from A Chorus Line; from dance in notation to dance in 3D; and from costume and set designs to costumes and scenery. Other events will include an exhibit of work at the OSU Urban Arts Space by Bebe Miller, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences at The Ohio State University, choreographer, and dance company director, and the Department of Dance Mershon performance Dance Uptown.

Line Dancing can be viewed from Monday-Friday, 9am to 5 pm, with a special viewing on Friday, November 16th in tandem with Dance Uptown at Mershon Auditorium.

About the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum:  Our primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to these collections.  The library is open Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  It is free and open to the public.  See http://cartoons.osu.edu/ for further information. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is located at 27 W. 17th Avenue, north of the Wexner Center’s main entrance.  Parking is available at the Ohio Union garage.

Contact: Caitlin McGurk – mcgurk.17@osu.edu – 614-292-0538

Additional information on the campus-wide celebration Ohio State Is Dancing can be found here.