Sara Duke's biographical sketches of cartoonists book available now

Years ago, Sara Duke wrote biographical notes for the artists in the Library's original cartoon collection. With her consent, I took her public domain file, edited it, and have turned it into a handy reference tool. This sells at printing cost, and neither of us makes any money on it. Libraries in particular should buy it.   - Mike Rhode

Biographical Sketches of Cartoonists & Illustrators in the Swann Collection of the Library of Congress

By Sara Duke

Paperback, 340 Pages 

http://www.lulu.com/shop/sara-duke/biographical-sketches-of-cartoonists-illustrators-in-the-swann-collection-of-the-library-of-congress/paperback/product-21425716.html

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Inside this book are short biographical sketches about the many artists represented in the Library of Congress' Swann Collection compiled by Erwin Swann (1906-1973). In the early 1960s, Swann, a New York advertising executive started collecting original cartoon drawings of artistic and humorous interest. Included in the collection are political prints and drawings, satires, caricatures, cartoon strips and panels, and periodical illustrations by more than 500 artists, most of whom are American. The 2,085 items range from 1780-1977, with the bulk falling between 1890-1970. The Collection includes 1,922 drawings, 124 prints, 14 paintings, 13 animation cels, 9 collages, 1 album, 1 photographic print, and 1 scrapbook.

International Journal of Comic Art 15:2 table of contents

For sale now via http://www.ijoca.com

New issue being mailed

The new issue of the International Journal of Comic Art should be arriving now. Issue 15:2 is 794 pages.

Remember that it's renewal time - $45 for individuals.

Swann Foundation accepting fellowship applications

The Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, administered by the Library of Congress is accepting applications for its graduate fellowship, one of the few in the field, for the 2014-2015 academic year. Deadline for receipt of applications is February 14, 2014. Please email swann@loc.gov or call (202) 707-9115 if you have questions. For criteria, guidelines, and application forms, please see:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/swann-fellow.html

 

MSU Libraries reprint classic comic Tim Tyler's Luck

I'm a big fan of MSU's Comic Art Collection.

MSU Libraries' Comic Art Preservation Project releases first volume

The Michigan State University Libraries, home to one of the world's largest collections of comic art, have established the Comic Art Preservation Project (CAPP), with the goal of making classic comics more widely available to libraries, collectors, and fans.

The first CAPP volume reprints two and a half years of Tim Tyler's Luck, a Golden Age adventure strip created by Lyman Young and distributed by King Features Syndicate from 1928 to 1996. The reprint is authorized by King Features.

The reprint volume contains daily strips from July 1, 1937 to December 30, 1939, and follows young Tim as he faces wild animals, dangerous criminals, and constant excitement as a member of the "Ivory Patrol," a fictitious law enforcement organization in Africa.

The strips were scanned from original proof sheets in the collections of the Michigan State University Libraries, resulting in a clear, crisp reproduction. The MSU Libraries have more than one million proof sheets from King Features Syndicate, along with more than 200,000 comic books and an extensive collection of books and journals about comic art.

The volume also features an introduction by Reade W. Dornan, a recently retired faculty member from MSU's Department of English. In her lively essay, Dornan examines the pop culture influences of the time – including Westerns, the Rough Riders, and boys' adventure books – and compares the adventure hero Tim exemplified to the superheroes created a decade later.

"The years of Tim Tyler's Luck reissued in these volumes showcase Young's career at the top of his game," says Dornan in the introduction. "By 1937, nine years after the strip started, Young has figured out how to tell a whopping good story."

"Newspaper comic strips like Tim Tyler were – and are – read daily by millions of people, but they're virtually lost to historians if not collected into volumes like this," explains Clifford H. Haka, director of the MSU Libraries. "We're extremely happy to help preserve this wonderful piece of American popular culture."

Tim Tyler's Luck is printed on the MSU Libraries' Espresso Book Machine, and available through Amazon.com for $18 plus shipping: http://amzn.to/17L7ffK.

For more information, contact  Ruth Ann Jones, Michigan State University Libraries, 517-884-0910, jonesr@msu.edu.

IJoCA vol. 1 # 1 reprint available now

You can now buy a reprint of the sold-out Spring 1999 first issue of IJoCA at Lulu.com. Lulu will print and ship the issue to you directly. The cost is $15 plus shipping. Table of contents: 1. Editor's Note: Finally, an International Journal for Comic Art 2. Comics Criticism in the United States; A Brief Historical Survey 3. A Framework for Studying Comic Art 4. Comic Art in Scholarly Writing: A Citation Guide 5. The Marumaru Chinbun and the Origins of the Japanese Political Cartoon 6. Proving "Silas" an Artist: Winsor McCay's Formal Experiments in Comics and Animation 7. William Hogarth: Printing Techniques and Comics 8. Breaking Taboos: Sexuality in the Work of Will Eisner and the Early Wordless Novels 9. Comics in the Development of Africa 10. Featuring Stories by the World's Greatest Authors: Classics Illustrated and the "Middlebrow Problem" in the Postwar Era 11. Recovering Sensuality in Comic Theory 12. The Horrors of Cartooning in Slim's Algeria 13. Mr. Punch, Dangerous Savior Children's Comics in Brazil: From Chiquinho to Monica, A Difficult Journey 14. Brazilian Adult Comics: The Age of Market Postmodern Spatiality and the Narrative Structure of Comics

New IJOCA issue is out

The new, paper-only issue of the International Journal of Comic Art (15:1) is out although the website hasn't been updated with the table of contents yet.