[Comicsstudiessociety] Help Preserve Comic Strip History

[Robert Beerbohm]

Twenty five years ago friends Bill Blackbeard, Art Spiegelman, some others
one many have heard of before, lobbied - hard - suggesting I was a logical
first draft choice to lead a team to sort and preserve Bill's vast trove in
those six semi-trucks. I estimated the macro elements of the task at hand
would and could be completed in four years. By 1995 I had already spent the
previous quarter century interfacing with Bill, Art and thousands of others
in dissecting, disseminating, analyzing all the myriad, mostly unknown to
most back then, comics in America back to 1842.

It was a partial, mortal blow, to my psyche for some time when Step One,
according to OSU rules, supposedly stipulated one had to have a Masters in
Library Science

Musings on a Sunday afternoon ...

Robert Beerbohm

On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 7:55 AM Mike Rhode via ComicsStudiesSociety <
comicsstudiessociety at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> Help Preserve Comic Strip History https: //buckeyefunder. osu.
> edu/project/35267 Previous Next Share to Maximize IMPACT $76,650 61% Raised
> toward our $125,000 Goal Project ends on December 31, at 11: 59 PM EST Give
> Now Description Donor Wall Help
> Help Preserve Comic Strip History
> https://buckeyefunder.osu.edu/project/35267
> [image: Individual reading a newspaper in an old library]
> Previous Next
> Share to Maximize
> IMPACT
>
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> $76,650
> 61%
> Raised toward our $125,000 Goal
> Project ends on December 31, at 11:59 PM EST
>
> Give Now <https://buckeyefunder.osu.edu/project/35267/donate>
>
>    - Description <https://buckeyefunder.osu.edu/project/35267>
>    - Donor Wall <https://buckeyefunder.osu.edu/project/35267/wall>
>
> Help save comics!
>
> *The History:*
>
> Twenty-five years ago, six semi-trucks arrived at The Ohio State
> University. They contained the world’s most comprehensive collection of
> newspaper comic strips and cartoons, featuring more than 2.5 million
> comic strip clippings and pages. Bill Blackbeard, a comics historian and
> collector, had amassed this vast and unparalleled collection in his San
> Francisco home starting in 1967. Bill recognized the value of studying
> this popular media that engaged a diverse audience of millions and that
> reflected and commented on our society and culture. Realizing that
> physical newspapers were being discarded by libraries in favor of
> microfilm, he understood that the black and white mircrofilm images could
> never be an appropriate format for preserving and studying our comic strip
> heritage, especially the Sunday color comics.
>
> In response to this need, Blackbeard embarked on a life-long mission to
> rescue comics material in order to preserve it for future generations. He formed
> a non-profit called the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, and traveled
> around the country collecting newspapers that libraries were no longer
> able to keep. He kept many Sunday comics supplements intact, but also
> recruited volunteers to clip out individual daily and Sunday strips to
> create complete runs in chronological order by title: his goal was to
> collect and preserve every comic strip that had ever been published. *The
> resulting collection, documenting more than a century of newspaper comic
> strips, is unique and could never be recreated today. **Many of the works
> Blackbeard preserved are the last surviving copies of their kind.*
>
> In the late 1990s, Blackbeard lost the lease on his home in San Francisco
> where he housed his massive collection. The material was once again at
> risk. Ohio State’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (BICLM) stepped
> in to save the collection. Seventy-five tons featuring more than 2.5
> million comic strip clippings and pages along with related material filled
> six semi-trucks that made their way from San Francisco to Columbus, Ohio in
> late 1997.
>
> *The Project**:*
>
> Despite the work previously completed since 1998, 2,000 boxes of material
> from this massive collection remain uncatalogued and undiscoverable, at
> risk of being forgotten.
>
> Donations support:
>
>    - Our Project Archivists’ salary and benefits
>    - Additional archival housing material
>    - One or two Ohio State student assistants
>
> *The Impact:*
>
> The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection project is at the heart
> of BICLM’s mission to inspire the study and appreciation of cartoon and
> comic art. As a cultural heritage center, we collect, preserve and make
> accessible materials that represent a diversity of voices for research,
> teaching, exhibitions, and educational programming.
>
> This collection contains the graphic art of thousands of artists,
> including such luminaries as Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Nell
> Brinkley, Lyonel Feininger, Frank King, Milton Caniff, Edwina Dumm, Hal
> Foster, Walt Kelly, and Charles Schulz, as well as many whose work has not
> received the appreciation and critical attention it deserves because of the
> lack of access. The collection also includes incredibly rare copies of
> the Chicago Defender, one of the definitive Black Press newspapers. It is
> imperative that we rehouse and catalog this historically and
> artistically-significant collection so that broad public access can be
> provided for exhibitions, for research, and for teaching. Creating access
> to these irreplaceable source materials and artistic commentaries on the
> social, political, and cultural happenings across time will offer unique
> insights to researchers while inspiring diverse, broad audiences for
> generations to come. Thanks to Bill Blackbeard’s collection, BICLM is the
> only place in the world where much of this material can be studied, and we
> can only imagine what discoveries remain in the thousands of
> uncatalogued boxes. We need your help!
>
> As a thank you for your donation, we have put together some fun (and even
> unusual) perks at different giving levels!
> [image: World of Books image]*World of Books*
>
> [image: World of Books t-shirt]World of Books T-Shirt
>
>
> [image: World of Books tote bag]World of Books Tote Bag
>
> *Collection Print Options:*
> [image: Historical image of Dimples Day Dream 1928 comic]*Dimples Day
> Dream* 1928
> [image: Historical image of Gasoline Alley 1923 comic]*Gasoline Alley*
> 1923
> [image: Historical image of Naughty Pete 1913 comic]*Naughty Pete* 1913
> [image: Historical image of Krazy Kat 1918 comic]*Krazy Kat* 1918
> _______________________________________________
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>
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