Image:  Matsumoto, Akira (Reiji). Aoi Hanabira (Blue Petals) (Tokyo: Showa Manga Shuppansha, 1958).

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will celebrate women’s history month and its international holdings with the opening of World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls’ Desires, a traveling exhibit curated by Masami Toku, Dept. of Art and Art History, CSU-Chico.

Image: Miss Lasko-Gross, Self-Portrait, July 30, 2010.

Graphic Details is a groundbreaking touring exhibition providing the first in-depth look at a unique and prolific niche of graphic storytelling – Jewish women’s autobiographical comics. While the influential role of Jews in cartooning has long been acknowledged, the role of Jewish women in shaping the medium is largely unexplored. This exhibition of original drawings, full comic books and graphic novels, presents the powerful work of eighteen U.S., Canadian, and International artists whose intimate, confessional work has influenced the world of comics over the last four decades, creating an entirely new genre. Spotlighting the raw, revealing voices of Jewish women and their singular presence in graphic storytelling, the exhibition illuminates the intersection of experiences that make these diaristic comics so compelling. By turns funny, outrageous, poignant and embarrassingly intimate, the works in Graphic Details reflect the artists’ individual journeys, refracted through a distinctively Jewish lens in a pop culture art form.

Many of the original artworks on display have never been exhibited in public until now. Artists run the gamut from pioneering Wimmen’s Comix and Twisted Sisters artists of the 1970s and 1980s to the superstars of the new generation. Participating artists include: Vanessa Davis, Bernice Eisenstein, Sarah Glidden, Miriam Katin, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Miss Lasko-Gross, Sarah Lazarovic, Miriam Libicki, Sarah Lightman, Diane Noomin, Corinne Pearlman, Trina Robbins, Racheli Rotner, Sharon Rudahl, Lauri Sandell, Ariel Schrag, Lauren Weinstein, and Ilana Zeffren. This iteration of the exhibit also includes selections from The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum collection.

Image:  J.S. Pughe. “IF – The Inaugural Dinner at the White House.” Puck, June 29, 1904.

This exhibition will examine the role William Randolph Hearst played in the birth of newspaper comics and trace the 100-year history of King Features Syndicate, the company he founded to develop and distribute comics, columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games around the world.

Image:  Will Eisner, “The Spirit”, October 9, 1949, Spirit Weekly page 1. Will Eisner Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. THE SPIRIT and WILL EISNER are Registered Trademarks of Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

It is nearly impossible to discuss the history of American comics without mentioning the name Will Eisner. On August 16, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will open a new exhibit entitled Will Eisner: 75 Years of Graphic Storytelling, highlighting works from the library’s holdings. The show will feature original art from some of Eisner’s greatest works including The Spirit, Contract With God, Dropsie Avenue, Last Day in Vietnam, and The Plot, as well as rarely-seen selections from his student days, his early work as a commercial artist, and his comics for the military. As a key figure in the birth of the comics industry in the 1930s and the rise of the graphic novel in the 1980s, Eisner influenced—directly and indirectly—everyone involved with graphic storytelling, as an artist, an editor, an entrepreneur and an educator. This exhibit explores the range of Eisner’s work spanning nearly eight decades and documents his impact on the development of comics over the past century.

Image: Karl Hubenthal. In the March, March 26, 1965. Karl Hubenthal Collection.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum presents The Long March: Civil Rights in Cartoons and Comics. The exhibit presents the story of the Civil Rights Movement and its impact through original editorial cartoons, comic strips, and comic books drawn from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s collections. It will also include artwork drawn by Nate Powell, for March, Congressman John Lewis’s graphic memoir, a New York Times Bestseller co-written by Andrew Aydin, about his experiences as a leader and activist in the movement. The exhibit explores the tensions, struggles, and victories from multiple perspectives, including mainstream daily newspapers and the black press.