The Sting of The Wasp
February 1 – April 15, 2005
The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library
27 West 17th Avenue Mall, Columbus, Ohio

Guest curator Richard Samuel West will speak at 6 30 p.m., Thursday, March 3, 2005 at the Cartoon Research Library. A reception honoring Mr. West will begin at 5:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by the Aldus Society. Parking is available in the Ohio Union and Arps garages. Due to the Wexner Center renovation, access to the Cartoon Research Library is limited to walkways on the east and the north.

Richard Samuel West is an independent scholar and historian of American political cartooning. He edited two periodicals, The Puck Papers and Target, and is the author of the outstanding biography of Joseph Keppler, Satire on Stone. He currently is the owner of Periodyssey, the largest company in New England specializing in rare and out-of-print magazines. West’s most recent book is The San Francisco Wasp: An Illustrated History.

Parking is available in the Ohio Union and Arps garages. Due to the Wexner Center renovation, access to the Cartoon Research Library is limited to walkways on the east and the north.

For most of the 19th century, American magazines were vast monochromatic fields of black on white. Beginning in the 1830s, a few magazines featured small hand-colored plates, but they were meager exceptions. Then, in the 1870s, thanks to the perfection of the chromolithographic process, a new breed of magazine exploding with color came to the fore. In short order, chromolithographic weeklies began popping up all over America. Outside of the famous New York weeklies, Puck and Judge, though, none lasted more than a year or two, except for one–The San Francisco Wasp.

That The Wasp endured was most improbable. Founded during the worst financial depression of the 19th century, it was expensive to produce. Published in an under-populated region of the country, it was guaranteed never to have a significant circulation. Often out of step with majority opinion, it never became the political power broker it aspired to be. Yet The Wasp was a success. It was for many years the most widely read magazine west of the Rockies. Its best cartoons compared favorably with those being published in New York. And the work of one of its editors, Ambrose Bierce, is read by more people today than are the writings of any of the editors of its more widely celebrated rivals.

During its first twenty years, the period of time when cartoons dominated its contents, The Wasp was, by turns, a staunch partisan of the Democratic Party, then politically independent, and finally a Republican Party booster of various stripes. It was owned by a series of men intent on advancing one political agenda or another. Twelve different men edited the magazine, while five served at different times as its chief cartoonist.

The Wasp was the colorful chronicler of one of the most exciting periods in the history of San Francisco. This show presents some of The Wasp’s most powerful and representative cartoons from the private collection of guest curator Richard Samuel West. The exhibit is supported in part by the Mark Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Endowment and Milton Caniff Endowment of the Cartoon Research Library.

Gillray’s Legacy
September 15 – December 10, 2004
Philip Sills Exhibit Hall
The Ohio State University
William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library
1858 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, Ohio

Gillray’s Legacy coincides with the 2004 Festival of Cartoon Art. Celebrating Georgian England’s greatest caricaturist as part of a twenty-first century conference focusing on censorship, self-censorship and editorial control may seem far-fetched. During an election year at a time of heightened national and international concerns, it is, however, most appropriate to remember that James Gillray was neither restrained nor genteel with his art. He created grotesquely exaggerated caricatures of the rich and famous of his time. Some of the works in this exhibit would not be printed today in a newspaper, and several others would draw angry letters to the editor.

In eighteenth century Britain, as Diana Donald notes, “No licensing of presses nor prior censorship impeded the circulation of these frequently abusive, scurrilous and volatile productions [graphic satires]. They were gestural, functioning as an assertion of defiant independence and protest against government which would have been unthinkable in most other European countries .” She continues by noting that “Foreign observers . . . were stunned by the apparently reckless way in which caricaturists ridiculed and vilified the nation’s leaders, and took this as indicative of the political freedoms enjoyed by the British people.”

The political and social prints that were popular in Georgian England sometimes served as samples for printers in the Colonies who also wanted to criticize George III and politicians on this side of the Atlantic. On occasion, they became more than an inspiration when a Colonial engraver “adapted” a design from England without crediting the source. The British legacy of unfettered graphic commentary provided the roots of cartooning in the New World.

Designs by Gillray from the collections of The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library in this exhibition are supplemented by reproductions of his work courtesy of the Library of Congress, Art Institute of Chicago, and Draper Hill. They represent two decades of his social and political satire. In addition, the Hale Scrapbook is displayed as an example of how one family used engravings for amusement. Items in the Hale Scrapbook were originally fixed in place with red sealing wax and they were moved from page to page as different people rearranged the book’s contents to suit themselves. Scrapbooking was a common practice: William Makepeace Thackeray remembered that in his grandfather’s generation, “. there would be in the old gentleman’s library two or three old mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, full of the comic prints of grandpapa’s time. . . How savage the satire was-how fierce the assault-what garbage hurled at opponents-what foul blows were hit. Fancy a party in a country-house now [1854] looking over Woodward’s facetiae, or some of the Gilray [sic] comicalities, or the slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson!”

The idea that engravings were a form of entertainment is important in our understanding of the works in this exhibition. Just like today, people in Georgian England enjoyed a good joke at the expense of politicians.

Hoo-Boy! Morrie Brickman’s The Small Society
November 2, 2003 – February 27, 2004
The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library
27 West 17th Avenue Mall, Columbus, Ohio

In 1966 Morrie Brickman created something different. The writer of a news story about the debut of the feature was undecided about whether it should be described as an “editorial comic strip” or a “political satire.” It was “both and neither,” according to cartoon historian Richard Samuel West, who continues by stating, “Even to this day, The Small Society defies neat categorization… Unlike all comic strips that preceded it, The Small Society was driven primarily by its topic for the day, not by its characters (who were generally Everyman and Everywoman), nor by a race to the punchline. Unlike the political cartoons of the period, The Small Society eschewed politicians and headlines in the particular to find the universal in public debate.”

The comic strip’s title provides a window into the cartoonist’s intent: “The Great Society,” Lyndon Johnson’s high-flown vision for the future of the United States, was making headlines. By titling his new comic strip The Small Society, Brickman made his perspective clear. His worldview is the everyday, and quirks of his characters belong to all of us. This is the comic strip’s greatest strength. Between1966 and 1985, from Viet Nam to Reaganomics, current events and American life are satirized in The Small Society. Grocery prices, inflation, taxes, family-the stuff of life for everyone-are covered in Brickman’s comic strip, often accompanied by a resounding “hoo-boy” that reflected his amazement at the world around him.

This exhibition and related events are cosponsored by The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library, its Milton Caniff Endowment, the Victor Herbert Foundation and Herbert P. Jacoby in memory of Marge Devine, the Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Endowment, the Department of Theatre, and the Melton Center for Jewish Studies.

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is pleased to announce our Grand Opening Festival of Cartoon Art, to be held at The Ohio State University in Columbus OH, November 14-17, 2013. The Festival, a celebration of cartoons, comics and their creators, is held every three years. This year we have more to celebrate than ever: the opening of our new expanded facility in Sullivant Hall.

Online registration will open on August 15, 2013 at the 2013 Festival website: https://cartoons.osu.edu/FCA/2013. The general registration fee will be $75 and will include festival keepsake items, reserved seating for events, and more. Registration for students and seniors aged 65 and over will be $25. Space is limited, so register early. Registration closes on November 1, 2013.

About the Festival:

A two-day academic symposium will kick off the Festival on Thursday and Friday, November 14-15, including a keynote address by American media and popular culture scholar Dr. Henry Jenkins. Panels at the conference will focus on the strengths and special features of the Cartoon Library’s unparalleled collection. The academic conference is organized by Professor Jared Gardner and is co-sponsored by OSU’s Popular Culture Program and Project Narrative.

A special program and ribbon-cutting party are planned for Friday night, November 15. The program will feature a conversation with two Ohio State alumni who both have new graphic novels debuting this fall: Jeff Smith and Paul Pope.

Our Festival Forum will take place on Saturday and Sunday, November 16-17, and will feature presentations by talented creators including Brian Basset, Matt Bors, Eddie Campbell, Kazu Kibuishi, and Stephan Pastis. In addition, Jeff Smith will introduce a program of Looney Tunes to celebrate the 75th birthday of Bugs Bunny. The forum will also feature a screening of the documentary, Stripped, which will be introduced by its directors Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder, and will be followed by Q & A with them and several of the cartoonists featured in the film: Dylan Meconis, Patrick McDonnell, and Hilary Price.

An Evening with the Hernandez Brothers: An Office of Diversity and Inclusion Distinguished Lecture Series Event: A Conversation with Love and Rockets creators Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez will take place on Saturday night, co-sponsored by the Wexner Center and The Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Exhibits: Our new museum will feature two exhibitions.

Treasures from the Collections of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: This exhibit will feature a selection of exceptional artwork and artifacts highlighting the breadth and depth of our collections.

Substance and Shadow:  The Art of the Cartoon: Cartoonists have mastered an almost limitless vocabulary of graphic expression to entertain and enlighten their audiences, but the creative process is still a mystery to most readers. This temporayr exhibition curated by Brian Walker reveals the elements, methods, tools and techniques that cartoonists utilize to create their masterpieces of graphic communication.

Throughout the weekend festival attendees can enjoy behind-the-scenes tours of our new facility.

Youth Programming: The Festival will include several youth events, including a WexLab teen comics workshop in conjunction with the Wexner Center for the Arts, and a special event for children ages 8-10 with French cartoonist Marc Boutavant. Mr. Boutavant’s participation is made possible by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy through the French Authors on Tour 2013 Program. Separate registration is required for these events.

The host hotel will once again be the Hyatt Regency Columbus. Reservations can be made at the conference rate of $135/night through October 22, 2013.

2013 Festival is co-sponsored by: The Ohio State University Libraries, Wexner Center for the Arts, Popular Culture Program, Project Narrative, Humanities Institute, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. With support from Mary F. Gau and Kevin Wolf, Milton Caniff Endowment, and the Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Endowment.

For further information see http://cartoons.osu.edu or email us at cartoons@osu.edu or call 614-292-0538.