This past weekend, I was at the Ohio State University Festival of Cartoon Art at their newly built facility, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.
Whew! It was the eleventh tri-ennial Festival, and it was great. The facility has been years in the making, and while there is a little work to be done to finish the building, and there were lots of guys in hard hats working diligently the whole time of the Festival, that’s cool. Very few buildings have been done on time in the history of mankind.
The only real question is- Is it funnier if the building’s not yet finished inside, or would it be funnier if it was? That’s important to that many cartoonists and researchers.
Yes, there were cartooning history researchers there… from at least five countries. Cool, no? Might even be funny, in the right light.
Anyhow, here are some photos I took. If you click on them, you get to see them larger.
There are even some names you might recognize in there. In the third photo down, that’s Mort Walker- who originated ‘Beetle Bailey’ and ‘Hi and Lois’ and whose family continues to do the strips. In the next photo down you have Dan Thompson, Chris Sparks, Norm Feuti, and Mark Parisi. In the following photo, aside from University dignitaries and Philanthropists to whom we owe much, are Jenny Robb and Lucy Caswell, for whom all cartoonists and cartooning academics everywhere have a warm, soft spot in our hearts and lives. They were about to cut the ribbon on the fine new $13,000,000.00 facility. After that, you get to see Dave Kellett and Brendan Burford. Then, the panel of folks who talked about the really terrific new documentary STRIPPED- That’s Dave Kellett again, Fred Schroeder, Dylan Meconis, Hilary Price, and Patrick McDowell.
If you don’t already know all these people, I urge you to bone up on your cartoonin’ knowledge and google ’em. I deliberately left off the features that most of the cartoonists do and the syndicate that one fella edits in, so you can guess if you have the chops, or you can look ’em up and expand your world. Discovery Educates.
Greg, did you talk to any of them? Do you have a favorite there as a cartoonist, as opposed to they’re being “a great guy to drink beer with”? That is, which one would you rather hang out with at these events, and which would one would you read first if given a stack of everyone’s books?
Man, there are a lot of cartoonists I like to hang out with, and whom I respect as cartoonists. I’d be afraid to leave people out if I just name a few names. John Hambrock (and his wife, Anne), Terri Libenson (and her husband Mike), Bob Rich, Stacy Curtis, Hilary Price, Frank Pauer, Tom Stemmle, Dave Kellet, Stephan Pastis, Jef Mallett… I dunno- I’m forgetting lots of people I got huge kicks from talking to…
Bill Janocha, Greg Walker, and the usual guys I get to see from our chapter, BIll Holbrook and John Lotshaw. Oh, Norm Feuti, Mike Cope…
See? Dozens of people I can’t imagine not getting to talk to and hang out with, and still, I’m leaving out names like crazy.
Cool, thanks for the names. I know a number of them, and a few are ones I also like to read.
Now, if they all gave you a copy of their books all at the same time, which one off the stack would you read first?
NPR did a piece on the museum within the last week. They interviewed one of the ‘international researchers’, too!
Excellent! The more publicity the better. Was the researcher Eddie Campbell? He’s Australian I think, and was there researching Turn-Of-The-Twentieth-Century Sports Editorial cartoons for a new book. He’s also the illustrator on Alan Moore’s ‘From Hell’.