Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a research library of American cartoons and comic art affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as the Cartoon Research Library and the Cartoon Library & Museum, it holds the world's largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting and displaying original and printed comic strips, editorial cartoons, and cartoon art. The museum is named after the Ohio cartoonist Billy Ireland.
Covering comic books, daily strips, Sunday strips, editorial cartoons, graphic novels, magazine cartoons, and sports cartoons, the collection includes 450,000 original cartoons, 36,000 books, 51,000 serial titles, and 3,000 feet (910 m) of manuscript materials, plus 2.5 million comic strip clippings and tear sheets.
The Cartoon Library began in 1977 when the Milton Caniff Collection was donated to Ohio State and delivered to the School of Journalism, which was headed by Lucy Shelton Caswell, who became the Milton Caniff Reading Room's first curator. Interviewed by Matt Tauber, Caswell detailed the museum's origins and how she became involved:
Caniff loved his university very much and truly believed that without the education he got here, he would not have achieved the things that he did. So, his sense of gratitude to the university was palpable... Somebody had to be responsible to make sure it was all there, and all the boxes had my name on it. When funding was made available to work on Caniff, I was offered a six-month appointment. I’ve been here ever since. The original collection was housed in the Journalism building. When I started working with it, we were in two classrooms that had been converted, a door cut between them, so that one was a reading room and one was a storage area... At the time that I started, there weren’t really the kinds of resources to teach and learn about comics that we have now. So, I basically had to make it up as we went along. There just wasn’t anything else out there. As a good librarian and scholar, I started writing around to other places that said they had cartoon collections to see how they did things, because you don’t want to reinvent the wheel if somebody’s already figured it out. It turned out that nobody had the kind of thing that we had in the Caniff collection, i.e. so extensive, and the combination of art and manuscript materials. And nobody else was trying to grow it the way we were.
From two classrooms off the back hallway of the Journalism Building in 1977, the collection expanded to three classrooms and became part of the University Libraries. By 1989, the three classrooms were filled, and the library moved into a larger space, eventually requiring the use of off-site storage as the collection continued to expand. (At that point, the facility was named the Cartoon Research Library.)
In 1992, United Media donated the Robert Roy Metz Collection of 83,034 original cartoons by 113 cartoonists. In early 1996, the library accepted a complete run of Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate proof books (1903–1977), as well as original art and papers from cartoonists P. Craig Russell and Lynn Johnston.
In 1998, the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection was acquired from its director, Bill Blackbeard, giving the library the largest collection of newspaper comic strip tear sheets and clippings in the world. The library was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Getty Foundation to assist in processing the material; six semitrailer trucks transported this collection from California to Ohio.
In 2007, King Features Syndicate donated its proof-sheet collection, consisting of over two million strips (a duplicate set was donated to Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection).
Hub AI
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum AI simulator
(@Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum_simulator)
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a research library of American cartoons and comic art affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as the Cartoon Research Library and the Cartoon Library & Museum, it holds the world's largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting and displaying original and printed comic strips, editorial cartoons, and cartoon art. The museum is named after the Ohio cartoonist Billy Ireland.
Covering comic books, daily strips, Sunday strips, editorial cartoons, graphic novels, magazine cartoons, and sports cartoons, the collection includes 450,000 original cartoons, 36,000 books, 51,000 serial titles, and 3,000 feet (910 m) of manuscript materials, plus 2.5 million comic strip clippings and tear sheets.
The Cartoon Library began in 1977 when the Milton Caniff Collection was donated to Ohio State and delivered to the School of Journalism, which was headed by Lucy Shelton Caswell, who became the Milton Caniff Reading Room's first curator. Interviewed by Matt Tauber, Caswell detailed the museum's origins and how she became involved:
Caniff loved his university very much and truly believed that without the education he got here, he would not have achieved the things that he did. So, his sense of gratitude to the university was palpable... Somebody had to be responsible to make sure it was all there, and all the boxes had my name on it. When funding was made available to work on Caniff, I was offered a six-month appointment. I’ve been here ever since. The original collection was housed in the Journalism building. When I started working with it, we were in two classrooms that had been converted, a door cut between them, so that one was a reading room and one was a storage area... At the time that I started, there weren’t really the kinds of resources to teach and learn about comics that we have now. So, I basically had to make it up as we went along. There just wasn’t anything else out there. As a good librarian and scholar, I started writing around to other places that said they had cartoon collections to see how they did things, because you don’t want to reinvent the wheel if somebody’s already figured it out. It turned out that nobody had the kind of thing that we had in the Caniff collection, i.e. so extensive, and the combination of art and manuscript materials. And nobody else was trying to grow it the way we were.
From two classrooms off the back hallway of the Journalism Building in 1977, the collection expanded to three classrooms and became part of the University Libraries. By 1989, the three classrooms were filled, and the library moved into a larger space, eventually requiring the use of off-site storage as the collection continued to expand. (At that point, the facility was named the Cartoon Research Library.)
In 1992, United Media donated the Robert Roy Metz Collection of 83,034 original cartoons by 113 cartoonists. In early 1996, the library accepted a complete run of Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate proof books (1903–1977), as well as original art and papers from cartoonists P. Craig Russell and Lynn Johnston.
In 1998, the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection was acquired from its director, Bill Blackbeard, giving the library the largest collection of newspaper comic strip tear sheets and clippings in the world. The library was awarded a $100,000 grant from the Getty Foundation to assist in processing the material; six semitrailer trucks transported this collection from California to Ohio.
In 2007, King Features Syndicate donated its proof-sheet collection, consisting of over two million strips (a duplicate set was donated to Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection).