Syracuse’s collection of original cartoon art is among the most comprehensive in America. It includes original work by approximately 173 artists (more than 20,000 items) and comprises more than 1,000 linear feet of material. Spanning the course of the 20th century, it includes both serial and editorial cartoons. Among the serial cartoonists represented are: Bud Fisher, whose Mutt and Jeff was the earliest

successful daily comic strip; Mort Walker, whose Beetle Bailey anticipated the changing notions of American masculinity and militarism during the Cold War; Hal Foster, whose lavishly illustrated Prince Valiant elevated the artistic ambitions of the genre; and Morrie Turner whose Wee Pals was the first comic strip to chronicle the lives of racial and ethnic minorities in American life. The editorial and political cartoonists represented in the collection include: William Gropper, whose leftist political cartoons in the Daily Worker raised working class consciousness during World War II; F.O. Alexander, whose everyman alter-ego “Joe Doakes” experienced the turbulence of the 1960s in the pages of the Philadelphia Bulletin; and Carey Orr, whose editorial cartoons appeared in the Chicago Tribune for nearly fifty years straight.

Hat tip: E&P

Harvey Comics was founded in 1941 by Alfred Harvey (1913-1994), with a digest-sized comic book called Pocket Comics that put the company on the map with their line-up of superheroes that included The Black Cat. Various artists and writers who eventually achieved greater success elsewhere got their start at Harvey, including Jack Kirby, Joe Simon and Jim Steranko. By the end of the 1940s, Harvey transitioned to publishing comic books featuring popular comic strips of the day that included Joe Palooka, Dick Tracy, Blondie, Mutt & Jeff and Sad Sack. By the 1950s, romance and horror titles came into the mix.

An inspired bit of licensing in 1952 led to the 1957 purchase of Casper and several other animated cartoon characters created by Paramount Pictures’ Famous Studios, with Baby Huey, Buzzy the Crow, Herman & Katnip and Little Audrey among them. The enormous popularity of these characters spelled the end of the other genres at Harvey, and the company became solely a producer of children’s comics during that era.

Various newly created characters, such as Richie Rich, Little Dot and Little Lotta, followed the same house style to become a group affectionately known as the “Harvey World,” Though various ownership changes have occurred since the original Harvey shut its doors in 1982, the characters have never ceased to be influential, with hit movies like Richie Rich (1994), starring Macaulay Culkin, or Casper (1995), starring Christina Ricci, or the current five-volume series of Harvey Comics Classics published by Dark Horse Comics.

This exhibition runs through November 30, 2008, and features artwork by Warren Kremer, Ernie Col’on, Sid Couchey, Howard Post, Fred Rhoads, Ham Fisher, Dom Sileo, Marty Taras, and many more.

IDW will be releasing “The Complete Little Orphan Annie, Vol. 1″ this month (June 11). This first volume is a bit more than 1000 pages and starts at the beginning in 1924 and includes the first nine completed stories until the end of 1927.

Volume 1 is edited and designed by Dean Mullaney, who as founder of Eclipse Comics in 1977 became a leader of the 1980s indie comics movement. Since then, Mullaney has become a specialist in restoring and re-presenting classic American comic strips. His work on The Complete Terry and The Pirates has earned him a 2008 Eisner Award nomination.

The book also contains the first-ever detailed look at creator Harold Gray by noted comics scholar Jeet Heer. With unprecedented access to the Harold Gray Archives at Boston University, nearly every strip in the book has been reproduced from its original artwork or syndicate proof.

» Alison Bechdel is taking her comic feature Dykes to Watch Out For on Sabbatical for an unspecified length.

» The Knight Life creator Keith Knight was profiled in The Daily News Transcript.

» Charlos Gary, creator of Cafe Con Leche and Working it Out is heading to New York after being laid off from the St. Petersburg Times.

» Last week, I posted news that Scott Stantis was celebrating 30 years of editorial cartooning. Also celebrating his 30th year in editorial cartooning: Steve Greenburg of The Ventura County Star.

» If you live in the Vermont area, take some time to see the “Campaign Fever ‘24″ exhibit at the Calvin Coolidge Visitor Center Museum in Plymouth, Vt. The exhibit highlights the 1924 election season wherein the Democratic party’s convention lasted 17 days before it could produce their nominee. Exhibit showcases political cartoons and campaign memorabilia.

» Tom Batuik, creator of Funky Winkerbean, has written an article that will appear in this month’s issue of Guidepost magazine. The magazine features articles of inspiring stories and people. Read the article here.

» And lastly, Bob Andelman (AKA Mr. Media) has interviewed Jules Feiffer about his feature Explainers. Fantagraphics has announced that it will publish the whole Explainers feature.

Listen to the interview. Open in your default player, or detach flash player into a separate browser window

Gould, who lived in Woodstock for much of his life, started drawing the Dick Tracy comic in 1931 and continued to do it for 46 years. At its peak, the comic strip was published in 600 newspapers, Johnson said.

The privately funded museum, which opened in 1991, had been struggling financially for a couple of years.

“It’s quite a loss for the community,” Johnson said of the closing. “It’s such a nice concentration of history. It’s 60 years of the art of a genius.”

Some of the artwork and memorabilia will remain at the Old Courthouse Arts Center where the museum was located. Other items will be donated the McHenry County Historical Society and other museums. About 300 pieces will be photographed and made available to the public via an online exhibit in the near future, according to an article in the Northwest Herald.

The Gaylord Herald Times has posted several photos that it took when it toured the museum earlier this spring.

Mel Casson, writer and illustrator for the Redeye comic strip passed away last week at the age of 87 of Alzheimer’s disease.

For nearly 20 years, Mel illustrated “Redeye,” a parody strip about a 19th century tribe of Native Americans, for King Features Syndicate. When cartoonist Bill Yates, who wrote the “Redeye” scripts, retired in 1999, Mel assumed full writing and drawing duties of the strip.

Mel was born in Boston on July 25, 1920. He was encouraged by his father to pursue a career in art. Seventeen-year-old Mel was the youngest cartoonist ever to sign a contract with the Saturday Evening Post. He received a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York City and while there, his artwork began to appear regularly in the Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, The New York Times, Ladies Home Journal, and nearly every other major magazine.

Mel enlisted in the infantry for service in World War II and made the Normandy Landing on D-Day. His commander was killed instantly upon reaching Omaha Beach, making Casson next in line to lead the attack. Mel successfully led his men through the assault without casualties and went on to participate in all the major campaigns in Europe. For his valor, he was promoted to the rank of Captain and decorated with five battle stars: two Bronze stars, the Croix de Guerre and two Purple Hearts.

After returning home from service, Mel’s first strip was Jeff Crockett for the Herald Tribune Syndicate, which appeared between 1948 and 1952.

His career at the drawing board was interrupted once again when the Communists invaded South Korea and he was recalled to active duty. After an honorable discharge, Mel’s career at the drawing board resumed once again with the creation of the children’s panels Sparky and Angel for the Publisher/Chicago Sun Times Syndicate, which ran between 1953 and 1966. He co-created with cartoonists Alfred James and Alfred Andriola (Kerry Drake) on the strip It’s Me Dilly from 1958 to 1962.

He was a writer-producer for ABC-TV where he created the television shows “Draw Me a Laugh” and “You Be the Judge.”

He had five cartoon books published, including the anthology “Ever Since Adam and Eve” for McGraw Hill, the Whole Kids Catalogue, and the Guinness Record Keeper. His cartoons appeared in every national magazine and his drawings in advertisements for IBM, GE, Kodak and Black & Decker.

In the 1970’s, Mel worked with cartoonist William F. Brown on the trendy Mixed Singles strip, which later evolved into Boomer and appeared until 1981 with United Feature Syndicate. In 1990, Mel became the new artist of the internationally famous Redeye daily comic for King Features Syndicate, which he took over from its creator, Gordon Bess. Mel worked with Bill Yates on the panel until 1999.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Lee Culver Casson, a former opera singer and actress, daughter Culver and grandchildren Remington Paris Cheffer and Lulu Culver Cheffer.

Correction: In the original King Features’ press release, the family had indicated that instead of sending flowers that a donation be made to Alzheimer’s Association. I made the assumption that Mel had passed away due to Alzheimers, which according to Rick Stromoski, in the comment section of this story, may not be the case.

Visitors will get to peek into the creative process of cartooning masters such as Harold Gray of “Little Orphan Annie” fame, through displays of original one of a kind art, ink stains and all. Over 35 original pieces of art will be on display in the ToonSeum gallery, located at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

“We are excited to present an exhibit featuring children in cartoons. In many ways, it is a celebration of the unique collaboration between the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the ToonSeum,” says Joe Wos, ToonSeum executive director. “We couldn’t think of a more fitting way to help celebrate their 25th birthday.”

The exhibit runs through August 3, 2008

When Mort began his career, he was told cartooning was a dying art, so he decided to diversify. Over the course of his career he did his magazine cartoons, editorial illustration, comic strips, cartoons for late-breaking news on television, appearances on children’s show, newspaper reporting, advertising designs, writing books (40 books so far), children’s books

At the 25 year anniversary of the publishing of his book “Cartooning: The Art and the Business” he industry is “still dying,” but his advice the book is still quite relevant.

Mort likes political cartooning but because the New Yorker doesn’t do editorial cartoons, he had to sneak them in subtly.

After the Bush Gore election, he was riding the train to the New Yorker office and had a great idea for a cartoon on the matter. He quickly pulled out some paper and drew up the cartoon on the subway and presented it to the magazine. They bought it and published it four days later.

He tried to do a comic strip - because he was told by Mel Lazarus that syndication was the way to cartoon fame and fortune. He started a strip called Koky with Richard O’Brian with TMS and ran for a couple of years. “It was really fun to do” but it was never a financial success. He also did a panel cartoon for TMS in the 1980s called Hang in There. He was asked by United Media to take over the There Ought to Be a Law that he did for a while.

He also started to do a live on the spot cartoon for late breaking news on a local television news station. He “covered” the inauguration of Richard Nixon. The examples Mort is showing the audience appears like an Andy Rooney segment where he introduces a topic and then they show him draw the cartoon and ends with a punch-line. He had to practice drawing the cartoon 35 times the night before so he could get the timing right. Eventually, 16 weeks later, they started taping the segment.

He guest starred on the old “Lamb Chop” children’s television show. The skit has him trying to convince one of the puppet characters to draw the letter “U” - and the puppet thinks he’s saying “ewe” - kind of like a “Who’s on first” comedy skit.

He did advertising cartoons for Brooks Brothers, Weber Grills, Fidelity Investments, HBO and Motorola.

He’s published 40 books for children, cartoon collections, and political humor. His latest book is called “Last Laughs” about collection of 131 cartoons on aging. Best gag: St. Peter is talking to a man at the pearly gates: “You have more money than God. That’s a big no.”

But Walker, in an interview today with E&P, also finds the merger bittersweet. “I was devastated that the deal with the Empire State Building fell through,” recalled the King Features Syndicate cartoonist. “We spent a lot of time and money on design and staff, and we were ready to go.”

Regarding the Cartoon Research Library,

“It’s a wonderful place,” he told E&P. “And the merger makes it the largest cartoon-art collection in the world.”

Very worth your time as it explores the impact of a comic character.

Hat Tip: The AAUGH blog.