10/31/13 - BOO! Scary Stuff: Don't Miss Out on 2013 OSU Festival of Cartoon Art!

It only comes around every three years...no. I'm not talking about Halloween (which is rescheduled this year due to impending storms and high wind) - I am talking about the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum's Festival of Cartoon Art.

Add to this that this is also the Grand Opening of the new home for the library and museum in the newly renovated and spacious Sullivant Hall! A once in a lifetime event!

The Festival is a triennial event that has been in existence since at least 1983 and consistently brings together an impressive group of guests from academia, comics, syndicated comic strips and illustration (many of whom are members of the National Cartoonists Association or NCS) together to celebrate, discuss and postulate on the topic of comics and cartoon art and creators. We have Curators Lucy Shelton Caswell and now Jenny Robb (along with numerous hard working library/museum staff) to thank for hosting and organizing these incredible festivals, sure to delight even the most worldly comics and cartoon aficionado.

If you missed the deadline for the main forum registration, don't despair,  you can still join in this year events by attending the academic conference or by getting ala carte tickets (cheap $5) to some of the individual programs!! Here is a complete list of programs and events

• Academic conference Thursday and Friday
• Library Grand Opening: Friday eventing
• Jeff Smith and Paul Pope talk:  Friday evening - ticketed event
• Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez talk : Saturday evening  - ticketed event
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum exhibits  - two ongoing shows in the new museum space
• Youth and Teen programs

If you have never heard of this comics and cartoon mecca in Ohio...you have missing out on an incredible treasure - here is an excerpt from their website regarding their history:

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum was established in 1977 in two converted classrooms in the Journalism Building with the founding gift of artwork and papers of alumnus Milton Caniff. Its collections of original art and manuscripts have been built primarily through gifts-in-kind. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is now the largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting printed cartoon art. Administratively it is part... read more. 

Contact info:

The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
Sullivant Hall, 1813 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43210-1393
Telephone: (614) 292-0538
Fax: (614) 292-9101

8/30/09 - GLC NCS Meeting News - Superman and Comic Strip Superstar

Last weekend the Great Lakes Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society or GLC NCS had their annual summer get-together in Cincinnati and invited some guests to attend - among whom I was lucky enough to be included. Many thanks to Craig Boldman for the invite! This meeting was fun and informative. Last year, myself and few other CCG members attended a similar event and info gained from then and there led to my being able to attend the NCS Tribute luncheon and presentation of the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award to Frank Frazetta at his museum in Pennsylvania in September 2008.

Well this year had some interesting news items as well. Ed Black, the GLC's secretary told of a project to preserve the homes in Cleveland Ohio of the two creators of Superman. The Siegal and Shuster Society is a registered charity and was founded last year by writer Brad Meltzer. With the generous help of many current comic artists it has raised over $100,000 in the last year to preserve the home of Jerry Siegel. This past July there was celebration of this achievement - see this link to CBR story for more details: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=21998

Another brief Ed shared was about Comic Strip Superstar. This event is a contest (entries must be in by September 12th 2009 to be eligible.

The winner will receive a publishing contract from Andrews McMeel Publishing, a $5,000 advance from Universal Uclick, and a monthly stipend for the development of 20 comic strips that will be considered for syndication.

Two well known cartoonist judges for the event include Gray Trudeau (Doonesbury) and Lynn Johnston (For Better or Worse) Also judging will be two veteran Universal Press Syndicate editors. The contest is sponsored by Andrews McMeel Publishing and hosted by Amazon.com. You need to have two weeks of daily cartoons and two Sunday strips in order to enter.

I did some further web searches upon hearing of this contest and have cooled somewhat in my initial enthusiasm for this project. There seems to be some concern that the contracts are somewhat one sided in the interest of the sponsor and not a good deal for the lucky winner. See these links for some of these commentaries:

• http://forums.leasticoulddo.com/index.php?showtopic=30264
• http://blog.comicspace.com/?p=1686
• http://www.webcomics.com/home/2009/8/19/comic-strip-superstar-contest-announced.html

Revised 09/08/09:
Oops! I forgot to mention previously the National Caricaturists Network (NCN) 2009 National Convention:

http://www.caricature.org/index.php?page=convention-upcoming

The event will be in Sandusky, OH over November 2-7, 2009. Big discounts for signing up before 9/15/09 - see site and below (copy and pasted from Tom Richmond's excellent blog):

On or Before September 15th:

• Members- $165
• Member guests- $100 each
• Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $99

After September 15th:

• Members- $250
• Member guests- $100 each
• Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $125

09/05/07 - See You in the Funny Papers?

The attention diverting image on the left will link you to a great blog on comics by Steve Duin of The Oregonian. Nice that they value the medium enough to have a regular columnist assigned to cover it! You can read a review about Craig Voe's mag there as well.

Meanwhile, our local paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, is running a request on their website for input about the comics they run in the paper. Stop by and enter your votes. This is great that they are asking, but the ballot system they are using seems a little restrictive.

How about we look at the big list of comic strip options? There a lot of great strips that don't get much attention: Liberty Meadows, Spiderman, Little Orphan Annie, you can probably remember some that you thought had gone away or are no longer produced. Here is a link to some of the best comic strips you have never heard of. Below is a partial list (let me know what I have missed) of the offerings from some of the comics syndicates:

• King Features: http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/comics.htm
• United Media: http://www.comics.com/
• Tribune Media Syndicate: http://www.comicspage.com/
• Creators Syndicate: http://www.creators.com/comics.html
• United Features: http://www.unitedfeatures.com/ufsapp/home.do
  

Oh, and while we're at it let's look at Editorial Cartoons - do you think they want our input on that? Here's some links to some of the leaders in that form of cartooning:

• The Washington Post Writers Group: http://www.postwritersgroup.com/edtoons.htm
• Tribune Media Syndicate: http://www.comicspage.com/ed_comics.html

I encourage all readers of this blog to contact your local paper and let them know you are interested in what they run, how they choose to display it (have you noticed the comics page space just keeps shrinking?) and that you want local content as well as the syndicated stuff!

For local area blog visitors, I don't have specific names or emails (yet!) for you all to send your messages to - in the meantime here is a link to the contact us web form for the Herald-Leader. Let them know what you want to read! Start a list here as a comment - we can summarize the suggestions and forward on to the powers that be. Viva La Revolucion!