BILLY IRELAND CARTOON LIBRARY & MUSEUM

Lucy Shelton Caswell has been curator of the Cartoon Library since it was called the Milton Caniff Research Room at its founding in 1977. The Library is now called the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum because it has outgrown a “room” and now archives much much more than Caniff’s papers, the donation of which instituted this unique special collection of the Ohio State University Libraries. After 33 years, Caswell announced her “semi-retirement” as of December 31. The new curator is Jenny Robb, erstwhile Caswell’s assistant (and onetime student), who left the OSU campus briefly to be director of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco (cartoonart.org). But Caswell will re-appear in the Cartoon Library as curator of special projects, chief among them, the renovation of Sullivant Hall as the new home for the cartoon holdings. (That's the dynamic duo, Lucy and Jenny, above.)

When it opened, the Library for Communication and Graphic Arts (a more dignified, institutional name than Milton Caniff Research Room even though the latter was on the bronze plaque at the door) occupied two converted classrooms in Ohio State's Journalism Building at 242 West 18^th Avenue. From this inauspicious beginning, Lucy Caswell spent the next three decades building the Library into “the widely renowned facility it is today, one of the most admired and sought-after caretakers of legacy collections” as press releases put it.

Thousands of donors have contributed to the collection, with gifts ranging from one item to tens of thousands, including dozens of cartoonists seeking a secure place to deposit usefully the remnants of their life’s work. The Will Eisner Collection was established in 1984 and additions were received following his death. Other cartoonists who have their work archived in the Library include Nick Anderson, Jim Borgman, Eldon Dedini, Edwina Dumm, Walt Kelly, and Bill Watterson. The Jay Kennedy Collection includes more than 9,500 underground comic books, one of the most extensive in the world. The records of several professional organizations—the National Cartoonists Society, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Newspaper Features Council, and the Cartoonists Guild—are archived in the Library.

In 1998, Bill Blackbeard, director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, donated its collection, the largest aggregation of newspaper comic strip tear sheets and clippings on the globe. In 2007, the entire holdings of the Mort Walker’s International Museum of Cartoon Art (IMCA), numbering more than 200,000 originals, was transferred to the Cartoon Library and Museum with the caveat that the art be regularly displayed in a suitable permanent gallery—hence, the Sullivant project.

With the addition of the IMCA's extensive permanent collection, the Cartoon Library now houses more than 450,000 works of original cartoon and comic art, 50,000 books, 61,000 serial titles, 3,000 linear feet of manuscript materials, and 2.5 million comic strip clippings and newspaper pages. The Library also has an extensive collection of Japanese manga.

Now arguably the world's largest collection of cartoon art and comics material, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is currently located in the lower level of the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts complex. Its new, permanent home in Sullivant Hall will expand its space from the current 6,808 square feet to more than 40,000 gross square feet, with a spacious reading room for researchers, three museum-quality galleries, and expanded storage with state-of-the-art environmental and security controls. The addition of exhibition galleries dedicated to cartoon art will facilitate public display of the Library's extraordinary collection and satisfy the IMCA’s proviso.

Preparatory to the move and coincident with the renovation, the Cartoon Library acquired a new name, possibly in recognition of the $7 million given in support of the Sullivant Hall project by the Elizabeth Ireland Graves Foundation, managed by Billy Ireland’s granddaughter, Sayre Graves. The gift resonates with a peculiar and reflective poetry. For Lucy Caswell, it may be said to have rounded off her thirty-year dedication to the Library, closing the circle: Billy Ireland was closely connected to Milton Caniff, the gift of whose papers began to trace the circumference of Library’s scope. Ireland was arguably the chief instrument by which Caniff gained a college education. And according to legend, at a crucial juncture in Caniff’s life, Ireland persuaded the young man to choose cartooning over acting as a career.

For more about Billy Ireland and his Caniff connection, consult the Usual Place (RCHarvey.com, Rants & Raves, Op. 274).