Found in the Collection: Spring-Heeled Jack!

London in the 1830s was a truly weird and terrifying place. The city and surrounding villages were plagued at large by a menacing and mysterious figure who not only lurked in dark alleys, but had the gall to occasionally go door-to-door frightening people. Detailed attacks were reported as early as 1838, in which the assailant was said to have “deprived seven women of their senses”, spit blue fire in many a passerby’s face, and generally freak many folks out based on appearance alone. However, among the many of the fiends horrific traits, that which was noted the most was his inhuman ability to… hop.
To hop over fences, in front of horse-drawn carriages causing them to turn over, down long stretches of road while stopping to slap onlookers across the face, etc.

Hence, horror was given a name, and it was Spring-Heeled Jack:

"Spring Heeled Jack" The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

“Spring Heeled Jack”  No. 9 & 10. From The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Although police reports were filed and many a news article written at the time, the real Spring-Heeled Jack was never caught, and so inspired over a century of urban legends. Among the earliest of pop culture formats that Spring-Heeled Jack could be found in was the penny dreadful, a large collection of which we have here at the Cartoon Library in our San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection. These publications, sold for one penny each, were marketed toward working class adolescents, and their feverish fan consumption served as precursors to the modern comic book.

Featured here on the blog today are some of our favorite covers from the collection, where appearances of Spring-Heeled Jack lay somewhere on the border of horrifying and hilarious.

The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

“Spring-Heeled Jack” No. 1. From The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

"Spring-Heeled Jack" No. 1. From The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

“Spring-Heeled Jack” No. 19 & 20. From The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

SHJ3

“Spring-Heeled Jack” No. 35 & 36. From The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

“Spring-Heeled Jack” No. 3. From The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Over the years, the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack has gone from evil to good, to evil all over again. Could his winged visage be a Victorian era inspiration to our 20th century Batman?

Teaching in the Cartoon Library: Digital Photography 2555

Shortly after our Artists’ Book Open House this February, we were thrilled to be contacted by lecturer Kristen Spickard in the art department about bringing her students into the Cartoon Library for a zine-making assignment.

Kristen’s class is the very first Intro to Digital Photography class that we’ve hosted here, and for their final project she wanted the students to create their own zine on any topic of their choice, so long as they incorporated photography into the piece. In order to gain some inspiration and learn more about binding techniques, the students came in to the Cartoon Library for two hours for a lecture on the history of zine and mini-comics making, and a show-and-tell of some of our incredibly unique items in The Dylan Williams Collection.

These 25 students of varying majors and ages were entirely new to the zine format and culture when coming in to the class, and each left with a thorough understanding of the spectrum of shapes, sizes, and subject matters that a self-published piece can take on.

On the last day of classes, I was invited to come to ART 2555′s Zine Release Party, where the students were trading their own finished publications, and swapping stories of how they were made. The results were amazing! No two students final projects were alike, and the topics ranged from personal pieces to instructional pamphlets, each incorporating digital photography into the theme.

There were accordion-style photo zines:

Food zines (food included)!
FoodZinesZines about traveling and new homes:
TravelingZinesZines on faith:faithzineZines of passion:PassionZines…and one student even hand-made their own paper for their zine!

At the Zine Release Party, the students were kind enough to gift us a copy of each of their final project zines, to be donated to The Dylan Williams Collection, from which their inspiration came!
zinebag
Thank you, ART 2555!

For information about bringing your class into the Cartoon Library, please contact us at cartoons@osu.edu

Call for Cartoon Library Volunteers!

Original editorial cartoon by Arnold Roth. From the Arnold Roth Deposit Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

Original editorial cartoon by Arnold Roth. From the Arnold Roth Deposit Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

Calling all Cartoon Library friends and fans!
We need your help!

Join us as we uncover hidden comic strip treasures from the United Media Syndicate Archives, as part of our preparation of the collections for our big move this summer. We need assistance unpacking, discarding acidic packing materials, sorting, and re-housing 300 boxes of proofs in new acid-free containers before our expansion into Sullivant Hall.  This collection contains thousands of comic strip proofs straight from the syndicate, ranging from the 1930s through 2000!

No experience necessary.  Training will be provided before we get started.  Don’t miss this chance to be a part of preserving the world of comics!
…And to get a free lunch!

When: Saturday, April 27, 2013
               10am-4pm

 Where: Ackerman Special Collections Storage Area
               610 Ackerman Rd.
               Columbus, OH 43202
               *Parking and lunch will be provided

Hope to see you there!
To sign up to volunteer, contact Wendy Pflug or Susan Liberator: 614-292-0538 or cartoons@osu.edu
Be a Cartoon Library hero.

OPEN HOUSE at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

museum of art

Please join us this Friday, April 12th from 5-7pm at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum where we will be opening up our doors to the public for a free open-house event to coincide with the 2013 Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (SPACE).

Enjoy the gallery exhibition A. B. Walker’s World, along with behind-the-scenes tours of the library stacks and a display of treasures from our collection, including original art from Jeff Smith’s “Bone”, Winsor McCay’s “Little Nemo in Slumberland”, Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes”, Frank Miller’s “Daredevil”, Jack Kirby, Walt Kelly, P. Craig Russell, George Herriman, and so many more!

This will be the last chance for a backstage look at our current facility before our big move into Sullivant Hall this summer. Hope to see you there!

For information on parking and locating the Cartoon Library, please see our Visit Us page.

Girl Scouts of the USA – Troop 303 Hastings Middle School!

2 Comments

Happy Friday, beloved Cartoon Library blog followers! You may have noticed that our blog has a new look — we’d love to get your feedback on it in the comments section.

Picture 045
Our gift to you this weekend is even more eternally-inspiration photos of our most recent visit from the Girl Scouts of the USA! Troop 303 of the Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland Council came by from Hastings Middle School to earn their Cadette Comic Artist Badge by learning all about women in comics, methods of self-publishing, re-purposing materials, and storytelling techniques. As usual, the afternoon culminated in each Junior Girl Scout producing an amazing 8 page comic out of one sheet of paper. To learn more about our involvement with the Girl Scouts of America in the Cartoon Library, visit our past posts here and here.

Picture 005

The Girls poured over dozens of mini-comics, Stephenny Godfrey’s epic fold-out comic Panorama being an especially big hit with this group. Click to enlarge the images below!

Reeling with ideas, they set to work on their comics, some girls even finishing two or three during our session!

Picture 029

Picture 057

Congratulations to the awesome cartoonists of Troop 303 on their first self published works!

cadettebadgegroup
For information about starting a small-press collection at your library, or bringing a Girl Scout troop into our library, please contact Caitlin McGurk at mcgurk.17@osu.edu

Found in the Collection: Jiji Manga, February 1921

One Comment

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library is home to one of the largest Japanese-language manga collections outside of Japan, amounting to over 18,000 manga items. This includes an incredible 500+ issue run of Jiji Manga, a weekly supplement that was added to the Jiji-Shinpo newspapers in 1900. This would be the first time that the word manga appeared in the title of a publication, inaugurating it’s popular use.

The image below is from the front cover of the February 11th, 1921 issue of Jiji Manga, a beautifully designed cartoon piece on Japanese women’s liberation.

Jiji Manga, February 11th, 1921. The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

“Jiji Manga”, February 11th, 1921. The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

With the help of our amazing manga cataloger, Misty Alvaro, we were able to decipher the meaning of some of the kanji, while other archaic characters are unknown to us for the time being. If any readers would like to offer their expertise, feel free to comment!

The first bubble that the woman is blowing depicts a Japanese woman cutting off the long, restrictive sleeves of her traditional kimono, a rebellious act, while the next image refers to labor reform for women. The definite meaning of the third bubble is still unknown to us. The fourth bubble is about sexual freedom and STDs, and the fifth represents the reform of childbirth laws. The sixth bubble deals with women’s suffrage, and the seventh is for choosing your own partner based on love: marriage freedom.

Below, scans of the inside pages of this time-faded issue:

jijimangainside1

“Jiji Manga”, February 21, 1921. The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Jijimangainside2

“Jiji Manga”, February 21, 1921. The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

To learn more about our manga collection, you can view our collection development policy here.

Narrative Medicine: A Film & Comix Series

Over the next month, the Cartoon Library is thrilled to be cosponsoring the Wexner Center’s: Narrative Medicine: A Film & Comix Series

Narrative Medicine

Find out why medical students and practitioners are turning to the humanities (especially narrative studies of literature, film, and comix), and see how the arts and humanities have often honed in on stories of patients, doctors, and other health care practitioners. This series of screenings and events illuminates an exciting new “narrative medicine” movement based on the premise that narrative competence enhances medical competence even as medical experiences reshape narrative forms. The series complements a two-day multidisciplinary conference.

—

On March 28th at 7pm in the Wexner Film & Video Center, join us for Ezra Claytan Daniels‘ presentation of Upgrade Soul:UpgradeSoulPromoEzra Claytan Daniels’s new digital comic Upgrade Soul tells the story of Hank and Molly Nonnar, wealthy science buffs who decide to fund a risky, experimental genetic therapy to rejuvenate the human body.There’s only one condition: They must be first in line to receive it. When dangerous complications develop, a battle for psychological dominance begins.

In this event, Daniels presents a live, interactive version of his format-busting comic with live musical accompaniment by Alexis Gideon, who performed with his own animated work at the Wexner Center last October. (app. 70 mins., digital projection)

For more information, or to buy tickets in advance, visit the Wexner Center website:
http://wexarts.org/fv/index.php?eventid=6889

—

On Thursday, April 4th at 4pm in the Wexner Film & Video Center, we’re honored to bring in David Small, cartoonist and author of Stitches:
StitchesPromo2StitchesPromo

Join David Small as he discusses his award-winning graphic novel Stitches (2009), a harrowing memoir of the botched childhood surgery that left him virtually mute. Stitches follows Small’s journey from the upsetting circumstances that necessitated the surgery, through adolescent hell, to the unbelievable recovery he achieved through his art.

For more information, or to buy tickets in advance, visit the Wexner Center website:
http://wexarts.org/fv/index.php?eventid=6891

CFP: The Third Triennial Academic Conference at the Festival of Cartoon Art

3 Comments

As some of you know, we are deep into the planning of our 2013 Grand Opening Festival of Cartoon Art, scheduled for November 14th-17th, 2013. We can’t reveal all of the details just yet–but put it on your calendars now–we promise this years festival is not to be missed!

Starting off the Festival weekend early on November 14th and 15th, there will be a two day comics academic pre-conference featuring the great Henry Jenkins as the keynote speaker. Below, details on the conference and a Call For Papers. We hope you’ll submit, see you there!
——-

CFP: The Third Triennial Academic Conference at the Festival of Cartoon Art

Beginning in 2007, the triennial Festival of Cartoon Art at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University added a one-day academic conference ahead of the weekend’s festivities. This year, 2013, the Billy Ireland will be hosting a special Festival to celebrate the Grand Opening of its glorious new home with a weekend of speakers, events and exhibitions. In honor of this momentous occasion, the academic conference this year will be a two-day event on Thursday and Friday, November 14th and 15th, leading up to the kickoff of the official opening festivities on Friday evening.

In honor of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, we will be organizing sessions focusing on some of the strengths and special features of the Library’s unparalleled collection. Toward this end we are inviting academic papers in comics studies, with a special interest in papers focusing on topics that connect with the Library’s collections and mission. (For information on the resources and collections at the Library, visit: http://cartoons.osu.edu). Some potential topics might include:

  • 18th- and 19th-Century Cartoon art
  • Editorial cartoons
  • Newspaper Comic Strips
  • Minicomics
  • Underground Comics
  • Walt Kelly and Pogo 
  • Charles Schulz and Peanuts
  • Will Eisner
  • Jeff Smith and Bone

We will also be celebrating the ongoing partnerships between the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and the pre-con’s co-sponsors, Project Narrative, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Popular Culture Studies. Toward that end, we are also soliciting papers on:

  • Graphic Narrative & Narrative Theory
  • Comics and Contemporary Art
  • Comics and Popular Culture

And last, but certainly not least, to honor the Billy Ireland’s teaching mission as part of Ohio State University, we are soliciting papers on “Teaching with Comics.”

Finally, we are delighted to announce that our keynote speaker for the academic pre-conference will be the one and only Henry Jenkins!

To be considered for the panels, please send a 250-500 word abstract and a one-page vita to gardner.236@osu.edu. The deadline for abstracts is July 1, 2013.

 

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: http://cartoons.osu.edu
Project Narrative: http://projectnarrative.osu.edu
The Wexner Center for the Arts: http://wexarts.org
Popular Culture Studies @ OSU: http://popularculturestudies.osu.edu

Will Eisner Week: Eisner’s Highschool Art Assignments

Among the many astonishing gems in the Will Eisner Collection here at the Cartoon Library, there are dozens of pieces that Will did as a high school student. If you’re in awe of the work he did as an adult for The Spirit, Contract With God, and countless others, just check out how impressive his chops were as a 16 year old student at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.

Will Eisner original, 1933. From the Will Eisner Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Will Eisner original, 1933. From the Will Eisner Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Will Eisner original, 1933. From the Will Eisner Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Will Eisner original, 1933. From the Will Eisner Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

These two portraits, likely done for a high school art assignment, date back to 1933. Here at the Cartoon Library we have put our collective knowledge together to try to identify who Eisner was depicting, but it has proven difficult for us to focus on anything other than his remarkable artistic skill at such a young age. Could it be Vladimir Lenin? Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey? We turn the question over to you, dear readers, and hope you’ll help us decide.