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Wed 14 May, 2008 10:53 am
Museum-Collection Move to Ohio State Will Create Huge Cartoon Repository
By Dave Astor
Published: May 14, 2008
The collection of the International Museum of Cartoon Art (IMCA) is moving to The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library -- creating what will probably be the largest collection of original cartoon art in the world.
IMCA has about 200,000 works, while the 1977-founded Cartoon Research Library has more than 250,000 original cartoons along with a huge amount of other material.
"Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker of King Features Syndicate founded IMCA in 1973. The museum opened in Greenwich, Conn., in 1974 and then was situated in Rye Brook, N.Y., from 1976 to 1992. In 1996, IMCA reopened in Boca Raton, Fla., but financial problems forced it to close in 2002. An effort to relocate to New York City's Empire State Building fell through in 2006.
"We are honored that the IMCA's board has placed its treasures in our care," said Lucy Shelton Caswell, professor and curator of the Cartoon Research Library.
She added that efforts are underway to provide increased space for the library to accommodate the IMCA material. "It's critical that we have state-of-the-art gallery space to display IMCA's collection appropriately," said Caswell, who noted that a gallery in the new facility will be named in honor of Mort Walker.
In a statement, Ohio State University Libraries Director Joe Branin said of the IMCA material: "We are excited to make this outstanding collection available for scholarly study and for general appreciation in exhibits and other public programs."
Bob Bastian was one of my favorite political cartoonists. I have two of his original cartoons. I plan to give one cartoon regarding the war in Cambodia to Dyslexia, who served there. The other is a large Ronald Reagan cartoon I was given by Bastian as a result of my overcoming Reagan's veto of my California Price Per Pound legislation. That one I'm keeping. ---BBB
Robert O. Bastian spent his early years in Stockton, Calif. In 1940 he received a B.A. in Political Science from the College of the Pacific. Following graduation, Bastian studied art with Dong Kingman at the San Francisco Art Institute until the outbreak of World War II. After serving with the Marines in the South Pacific, he worked in San Francisco as an advertising illustrator until hired as editorial cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1953. Bastian held this position until a 1968 strike forced him to seek other employment. In that same year he was hired as cartoonist-in-residence by San Francisco Public Broadcasting's KQED-TV for a nightly hour-long news program called "Newsroom." Bastian's role on this program was to draw one cartoon each night during the course of the show. KQED published a collection of his 1968/69 efforts as The Best of Bastian. Bob Bastian committed suicide in 1970.
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