Mort Walker has been drawing Beetle Bailey for almost 60 years, and for almost as long, the 84-year-old veteran cartoonist has been fighting the good to preserve our cartoon history.
Walker's struggle began in the 1940s when King Features Syndicate, like many graphics-intensive publishing businesses, regularly discarded original art. Most cartoonists and comic book artists were not entitled to their original art in those days. As far as the publishers were concerned, they had paid the artists for the artwork and it became property of the publisher.
Often, when an art department became overburdened with stacks of bristol board drawings, it was some uniformed or uncaring (you pick) person's task to haul the excess down to incinerator. Walker helped rescue a great deal of original art drawn by the likes of Charles Schulz and George Herriman.
This artwork became the basis for Walker's crusade, a museum of cartoon art. He spent 20 years pitching his idea to assorted museums and cultural institutions, but got no response until the Hearst Foundation – as in Hearst Newspapers – granted him $50,000 to open the National Cartoon Museum in Greenwich, Conn.
His museum is not to be confused with the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, located in Lower Manhattan.
Two years later, with rising rent and diminishing funds, Walker bought a home in Rye Brook, N.Y. to house the collection, which was continuing to grow. For the next 16 years, the entire Walker family operated the museum attracting as many as 75,000 visitors per year. But in 1992, the structure began to crumble, and the collection had expanded beyond its own boundaries.
Boca Raton, Fl., became the new home of the museum in 1996, in a brand new space specially designed for the museum. However loss of corporate sponsorship resulted in a shortfall of over $5 million. Unable to afford basic operating costs, the museum closed in 2002 and the Walker began looking for its new home once again.
In the years since, the archives have been in storage in Stamford, Conn. While fragments of the collection have been temporarily exhibited elsewhere, the collection as whole remained homeless. Fellow cartoonists have continued to share their originals as part of the expanding collection, and donations have helped pay for storage fees. Auctions helped pay for some immediate needs, such as debt relief on behalf of the defunct museum.
In 2006, the Empire State Building was reported to become the new home of the museum, but the plans never materialized. Walker, having invested a great deal of time, money and effort, was devastated.
IMCA’s collection, valued at over $20 million, consists of approximately 200,000 works, including original drawings from all genres of cartoon art (comic strips, comic books, animation, editorial, advertising, sport, caricature, greeting cards, graphic novels and illustrations), display figures, toys and collectibles, and works on film and tape, CDs and DVDs.
Last year Walker entered into negotiations with Ohio State University to merge his collection with OSU Cartoon Research Library in Columbus, Ohio, creating the largest such collection in the world.
Joe Branin, Director of The Ohio State University Libraries, issued the following statement: "In receiving the collection of the International Museum of Cartoon Art, the Cartoon Research Library has substantially enhanced its standing as one of the premier research libraries. We are excited to make this outstanding collection available for scholarly study and for general appreciation in exhibits and other public programs.
Lucy Shelton Caswell, professor and curator of the Cartoon Research Library, said, “We are honored that the IMCA’s board has placed its treasures in our care.” Efforts are underway to provide increased space for the Cartoon Research Library that will include museum-quality galleries. “It is critical that we have state-of-the-art gallery space to display IMCA’s collection appropriately,” notes Caswell. A gallery in the new facility will be named in honor of IMCA founder Mort Walker.
To learn more about Ohio State University's cartoon research library, visit http://cartoons.osu.edu
