"From Panels to Frames: Comic Art in Museums"

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I'm happy to announce that I will be editing a collection of essays, comics, reviews, and other materials about comic art in museums for the University Press of Mississippi. My UPM editor, Vijay Shah said "Museums, exhibitions, and exhibition catalogs have played a great part in the development of comics scholarship. By bringing this "low art" into the presence of "high art," a good deal has been learned about both. This matter has hardly been studied at all, and a good many people involved in it have been overlooked or forgotten."

Cover art illustration by Will Eisner. Originally created for the Museum of Cartoon Art.

Cover art illustration by Will Eisner. Originally created for the Museum of Cartoon Art.

So far, contributors include: Brian Walker, Dr. Thomas Inge, Benoit Crucifix, Jaqueline Berndt, Michael Dooley, Charles Hatfield, Diana Green, Trina Robbins, Karen Green Jonah Kinigstein, Denis Kitchen, Leslie Jones, Kenneth Baker, John Lent, and Mark Badger. Interviews with artists Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, and Carol Tyler will be included. More to come.

If all goes as planned, publication is expected spring 2018. Thanks to Brian Walker, Denis Kitchen and Carl Gropper for allowing me to use this perfect Will Eisner illustration for my cover.

New Article: The Books and Exhibitions of Maurice Horn

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Poster for 1967 exhibition, courtesy of Maurice Horn.

Poster for 1967 exhibition, courtesy of Maurice Horn.

"How the French Kickstarted the Acceptance of Comics as Art in the US: the Books and Exhibitions of Maurice Horn" will be published in the Fall 2016 issue of the International Journal of Comic Art, and is currently available on Academia.edu.

Overview of the career of the French/American comics pioneer Maurice Horn. Discussion of the French interest in US comics, and the exhibitions Bande dessinée et figuration narrative (Paris 1967), AAARGH!: a Celebration of Comics (London 1970), and 75 Years of the Comics (NY 1971). Books discussed are A History of the Comic Strip (1968), World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976), Women in the Comics (1977), and several others. Includes a short history of American comics in France, and the 1960's groups, Club Bande Dessinée, and SOCERLID, that championed the idea of comics as "the ninth art" through their exhibitions and publications. Horn was a contributing member of these groups, moving on in the 1970's to edit an important string of comics reference books.

Article includes interviews with Maurice Horn, Rick Marschall, John Lent, Brian Walker, Denis Kitchen, Trina Robbins, Steve Leialoha, and Art Spiegelman. 

 

New Article on Malcolm Whyte and the founding of the Cartoon Art Museum

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Catalog cover Zap to Zippy 1990

Catalog cover Zap to Zippy 1990

"A Collaborative Journey: Malcolm Whyte, Troubador Press, and the Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco" will be published in the Fall issue of the International Journal of Comic Art, and is currently available on Academia.edu.

The longest running independent museum of comic art, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, was forced out of its space in September 2015, and is still looking for a home. This is the story of the museum's founder, the author and publisher Malcolm Whyte. His amazing career began in the Navy when he and a partner started Troubador Press, which began with greeting cards and grew to high quality coloring books illustrated by Greg Irons, Larry Todd, and Edward Gorey, In the mid-80's he founded the Cartoon Art Museum, and was the director from the opening in 1988 through 1992. Key exhibitions and catalogs are discussed. Following this he moved back into publishing with the Cottage Classics books. These were illustrated by artists like S. Clay Wilson, Maxon Crumb and Spain Rodriquez. Often these publications were coordinated with exhibitions.