Paper dolls are a popular pastime in cartoon strips and comic books, giving young readers a chance to play “dress-up” and bring their favorite characters to life. In conjunction with our current exhibit, Cartoon Couture, kids aged 7-12 will have a chance to make their own paper dolls and clothing to take home.

This is a FREE workshop, but space is limited and registration is required. Email cartoonevents@osu.edu to register your child.

In honor of Will Eisner Week, visiting scholars Roy T. Cook and Mark Fertig will be joined by local presenters in a symposium devoted to recent comics scholarship.

This talk explores how the speculative worlds of contemporary U.S. superhero comics have addressed the problem of difference and human diversity through stories about the catastrophic threat of genocide.

Ide Genji

Written a millennium ago by lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu in service to Shôshi, consort to Emperor Ichijô (986-1011), The Tale of Genji has captured the imaginations of readers, artists, writers, and even the Japanese government, transposing into woodblock prints, novels, films, a symphony, and even an opera in English.  Journeying from an elite, circumscribed courtly society through the domains of warlords, townspeople, and a modern nation state, it has been utilized time and again as cultural and political soft power, appearing in one of its newest iterations—Japanese manga comics—in the 1970s. To date, the over thirty manga Genjis visually, narratively, and affectively remediate male and female gazes, gently add humor, eroticize, gender flip, queer, and simultaneously re-inscribe and challenge heteronormative gender norms.  “Pretty boy” heroes, dazzling, luminous (fe)male objects of desire, young men targeted “eye candy,” and more abound!

Hats and costumes in this exhibit courtesy of the OSU Historic Costume & Textiles Collection

You’re invited to a fashion-forward celebration and reception for our current exhibit, Cartoon Couture! This exhibit features original cartoon art as well as costumes from the OSU Historic Costume and Textiles Collection, and traces the history of fashion in cartoons and comics dating back through the 1700s.

We’ll be celebrating in style, and the costume theme is DECADES! Break out your bell bottoms, fedoras, letter jackets, flapper dresses and more, and join us for:

• Light refreshments and a cash bar
• A paper doll-making activity
• Curators’ tour at 6 pm
… and a few surprises!

This event is FREE, family-friendly, and open to the public.