Spend the day at Pixar Animation Studios
For the Sixth Annual Cartoon Art Museum Benefit!
Saturday November 14, 2009

The Cartoon Art Museum, the only museum in the western United States dedicated to all forms of cartoons and comics, is delighted to host its sixth annual benefit on Saturday, November 14, 2009 at Pixar Animation Studios.  From Pixar’s inception in 1986 with the premiere of its iconic short film, Luxo Jr., to the studio’s latest full-length feature, Disney•Pixar’s Up, Pixar has wowed and charmed the world with its incredible computer animated creations. This year, there are two great ways to experience the magic of Pixar up close and personal at the studio’s Emeryville home:

The Family Fun Tier
(1:00 – 4:00 pm)

Bill Mauldin:  A Life Up Front

Booksigning and presentation with author Todd DePastino

Cartoon Art Museum Event:  Friday, October 2, 2009, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
$5 suggested donation

The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes author Todd DePastino on Friday, October 2, 2009 from 7:00 to 9:00pm for a special presentation on the life and art of multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin.  DePastino’s program is an illustrated talk on the great World War II cartoonist Bill Mauldin, an army infantry sergeant who rocketed to fame at age
22 with his wildly popular feature Up Front.  Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and General George Patton's pledge to throw him in jail for insubordination to deliver his grim depictions of war to Stars and Stripes and hundreds of homefront newspapers.   There, readers followed the stories of Willie and Joe, two wise-cracking ‘dogfaces’ whose mud-caked uniforms and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived – and died – in it.  We have never viewed war in the same way since.

This presentation is based on DePastino's book, BILL MAULDIN: A LIFE UP FRONT (W.W. Norton, 2008), which has been named one of the best books of 2008 by
the Boston Globe, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, among others.  DePastino is also editor of the acclaimed WILLIE & JOE: THE WWII YEARS(Fantagraphics Books, 2008), the first complete collection of Mauldin's World War II.  His previous books include CITIZEN HOBO: HOW A CENTURY OF HOMELESSNESS SHAPED AMERICA (University of Chicago Press, 2003) which won a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.  He has a Ph.D. in American History from Yale University and teaches at Waynesburg University.  He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two daughters.

The suggested donation for this presentation is $5, although no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Fort Knox:
The First Syndicated Military Family Comic Strip

Cartoon Art Museum Event:  Thursday, October 1, 2009, from 7pm to 9pm
Free and open to the public

Join cartoonist Paul Jon at the Cartoon Art Museum on Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 7pm for a detailed presentation on what it took to get his Fort Knox feature signed and launched with the Washington Post Writers Group (hint: lots of blood, sweat and groveling).  The strip launches nationwide on Monday, October 5, 2009.  Paul Jon, an Army brat, grew up all over the country and will tell you how he survived the multiple moves, merciless bullies and chronic asthma.  He later managed to stuff his experiences in his comic creation, Fort Knox - the first syndicated comic strip centering on a military family.  As a special treat, Paul Jon will have his long-suffering parents at the event.  Feel free to give them your condolences.

This special event is free and open to the public.

About the comic strip:  Fort Knox chronicles the life of a military family:  Dad, Major Joe Knox; Mom, Jane Knox; and their two boys, Donald and Wesley.  The family has picked up and moved — again — thousands of miles from family and friends to take up residence at Joe's new assignment at Fort Lincoln.  Donald and Wesley have moved before, but that doesn't make it any easier on them.  They must face down new bullies, master a new school system and new teachers, and navigate a new community.  Added to these pressures is the distance the move puts between them and their beloved grandmother, who's a known troublemaker if not a known felon (yet).  On top of all that, there's the strain that military life puts on their parents' otherwise happy marriage.

About the artist: Fort Knox:  Cartoonist Paul Jon is, of course, a military brat himself.  "The downside was that every time we moved, I gained a new bully.  Eventually, I had to give them numbers to keep track," he jokes.  "In many ways, they were like terrifying personal trainers.  Thanks to all the running away I did, I was able to overcome my childhood asthma."

"Since 2005, Paul Jon has been developing Fort Knox and tapping the well of his childhood experiences — the frustrations and embarrassments and angst," says Washington Post Writers Group Comics Editor Amy Lago.  "Four years of cartooning no doubt has been cheaper for Paul Jon than four years of therapy.  The Writers Group is pleased that the cartooning, at least, is beginning to pay off."  Fort Knox will be distributed by the Writers Group starting Oct. 5.

Cartoonist Paul Jon is the son of an Army colonel whose tours of duty included Fort Leavenworth, Fort Jackson and Fort Knox, and who, every morning, liked to say to his fellow soldiers, "It's a great day to be in the Army."  Paul Jon understands his dad's attitude, and feels that being a military brat "made me understand the sacrifices that military families make for our country, and also made me a better person for having to deal with new people all the time."  Luckily for Paul Jon, he had an eccentric red-haired brother and his trusty inhaler to keep him company through each change in location.

In addition to his daily and Sunday Fort Knox duties, Paul Jon runs the creative services department of a Bay Area software company, and his artwork has appeared in newspapers, magazines and online publications across the country.  He earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of South Carolina.

To view samples of the upcoming comic strip, please visit:  http://www.postwritersgroup.com/comics/fortknox/samples1.htm

Monsters of Webcomics:

Final Frames:  Behind the Scenes at the Perry Bible Fellowship

Look at me! Autobio Comics Read by Their Creators

Cartoon Art Museum Event:  Friday, August 21, 2009, from 7pm to 9pm
$5 Suggested Donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Monsters of Webcomics

Cartoon Art Museum exhibition: August 8 – December 6, 2009

The Internet has revolutionized all forms of communication, and comics are no exception.  The Cartoon Art Museum explores the digital revolution in its latest exhibition, Monsters of Webcomics, a showcase of some of the best and boldest work published on the World Wide Web.

Cartoonists choose to work on the Web for many reasons.  For some, it’s an opportunity to reach readers directly without going through editors, publishers, or syndicates. For others, it’s a chance to explore the artistic possibilities of the Web, whether that means working in a format that would be impossible in print, tackling subject matter most comic-book publishers won’t handle, or taking advantage of the rich palette available with digital coloring.  Others simply want to share their comics with as many people as possible.

The comics by the ten artists featured in this exhibition run the gamut from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels and include comedy, drama, history, science fiction, and sociopolitical commentary.  As varied as this work is, however, it represents only a very small sample of the comics available on the Web.  The Monsters of Webcomics exhibition also includes a virtual gallery that will highlight dozens of additional online comics.

ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTISTS:

Slow Wave
By Jesse Reklaw
slowwave.com

One of the longest-running webcomics, Slow Wave has been running online and in weekly newspapers since 1995.  While pursuing a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence at Yale, Jesse Reklaw began drawing comics about dreams.  These comics developed into Slow Wave, a weekly strip in which Reklaw draws dreams submitted by readers.  Recently, Reklaw began incorporating a running plot into the strip, although the dream content still comes from reader emails. Some of the best strips from Slow Wave’s venerable run were recently published in the print collection The Night of Your Life.

Hark! A Vagrant!
By Kate Beaton
harkavagrant.com

Kate Beaton’s comics reflect her interest in history, especially that of her native Canada.  Born in Nova Scotia, she worked at a museum in British Columbia before moving to Ontario.  Although the comics she posts on her website range from autobiographical strips to stories about mermaids and mystery-solving teens, she’s perhaps best known for her comics poking erudite fun at historical figures.

Beaton won this year’s Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent, and Wired magazine called her “the Web’s best military historian, hands down.”  Her book Never Learn Anything from History collects some of her best history comics.

Girl Genius
By Phil and Kaja Foglio
girlgeniusonline.com

Phil and Kaja Foglio began publishing Girl Genius, a “gaslamp fantasy” about the adventures of mad scientist Agatha Heterodyne and her friends, rivals, and minions, as a traditional print comic book.  Soon, however, they discovered they could reach far more readers on the Web. Girl Genius now runs online, with new pages posted three days a week, before being published in graphic novel form.

The most recent Girl Genius collection, Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, was nominated this year for a Hugo Award in the Graphic Fiction category.

Cat and Girl
By Dorothy Gambrell
catandgirl.com
For the past ten years, Dorothy Gambrell’s Cat and Girl, described as “a cat, a girl, and an experimental meta-narrative,” has run online and been featured in various print anthologies. Many of the strips consist of philosophical and political conversations between the cynical, intellectual Girl and the whimsical Cat, who likes polka, frosting, and eating paint.  Other characters include Girl’s hipster counterpart Grrrl; a beatnik vampire called, appropriately, Beatnik Vampire; the hapless Bad Decision Dinosaur; and the lovelorn Boy.

The Perry Bible Fellowship
By Nicholas Gurewitch
pbfcomics.com

The Perry Bible Fellowship first ran in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange.  It exploded in popularity when Nicholas Gurewitch began posting strips online in 2004.  As the darkly funny weekly gag strip progressed, Gurewitch expanded his artistic repertoire, experimenting with different art styles and creating pastiches of illustrators like Shel Silverstein and Edward Gorey.

PBF has won two Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Online Comic, a Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work, and an Eisner Award for the print collection The Trial of Colonel Sweeto.  The newest collection, The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack, spans the entirety of the online archive.

Dicebox
By Jenn Manley Lee
dicebox.net

Dicebox is a science-fiction graphic novel of epic scale.  Set in the distant future, the story follows a year in the lives of two female migrant workers, Griffen and Molly, as they journey from planet to planet.  Jenn Manley Lee, a graphic designer in Portland, Oregon, plans for the story to span four books with a total of 36 chapters.  Book One is now close to completion online.  

Dicebox has yet to be published outside of the Web, in part because the lavish full-color art would be expensive to publish in print.  Comics scholar Scott McCloud listed Dicebox as one of his “Personal Top Twenty” webcomics.

Family Man
By Dylan Meconis
lutherlevy.com

Dylan Meconis’ first webcomic, Bite Me!, begun while she was still in high school, was a slapstick comedy about vampires in revolutionary France.  Family Man, her current project, reworks some of the characters and concepts from Bite Me! into a meticulously researched graphic novel set in 18th-century Germany. Luther Levy, a young scholar and theologian, leaves his university job and begins stirring trouble within both his family and academia.

Meconis has also published work in the Flight anthology and illustrated the nonfiction comic Wire Mothers, written by Jim Ottaviani.

Achewood
By Chris Onstad
achewood.com

Since its launch in 2001, Achewood has developed into one of the funniest and most fascinating comics on the Web, but also one of the hardest to describe.  Updated roughly 2-3 times a week, the strip follows a group of cats, robots, and stuffed animals who live in Chris Onstad’s house as well as an alternative city called the Underground.  Over the years, the focus has settled on two characters, the wealthy, eccentric Ray Smuckles and his neurotic best friend Roast Beef.

In 2007, Time magazine named Achewood one of the top ten graphic novels of the year.  In the same year, it was declared Funniest Online Comic by Cracked.com. The strip has also won two Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Online Comic.  

Templar, AZ
By Spike
templaraz.com

Templar, Arizona is set in a fictional Arizona town in an alternate universe similar to, but not quite the same as, our own.  Roughly at the center of the constantly expanding cast of characters are introverted writer Ben, his flamboyant and dirty-minded neighbor Reagan, and gentle giant Scipio, who works as a bodyguard and owns a pet chicken.  Spike calls the series “culture fiction,” as the world of Templar is at least as important as the characters.

Templar, Arizona won a 2007 Glyph Comics Award for Rising Talent, as well as three 2009 Stumptown Trophy Awards for Outstanding Art, Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Webcomic.  To date, Spike has published three print collections.

Get Animated! Booksigning

Cartoon Art Museum Bookstore Event:  Sunday, July 19, 2009 1pm  to 3pm

Free and Open to the public

July Cartoonist-in-Residence:  Briana Miller

Cartoon Art Museum Event:  Saturday, July 18, 2009 1pm  to 3pm

Free and Open to the public

How to fit Big Ideas into Mini Comics
A Saturday workshop for youth ages 11-15

The Cartoon Art Museum’s new two-hour workshop will teach students how to use their Big Ideas to create Mini Comics, those 5x8-inch booklets you see in independent bookstores and comic book shops.  The class begins with a study in character development, followed by storytelling basics, then page layouts and dialog/narration.
 
Along the way, professional cartoonist Betsy Streeter will help students brainstorm ideas, fill in details, develop exciting plot twists, and figure out how to get it all down on the page.  Streeter will offer pointers on how to fit text and drawings together, how to show action, and other tricks of the cartooning trade.  Each student will leave class with his or her own mini-comic!
 
Instructor: Betsy Streeter
Date: Saturday, July 18, 2009 or Saturday, August 1, 2009 (sign up for one date only)
Time: 12 Noon to 2 PM
Age: Youth ages 11 to 15 years old
Place: Cartoon Art Museum - 655 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
Cost: $15 per person
Enrollment: Limited to 12 students per session
 
To register please call 415-227-8666 x303 or email education@cartoonart.org.
To sign up for this class, the $15 fee must be pre-paid prior to the date of the class. We accept Visa and MasterCard charges over the phone or in-person, or mailed or hand-delivered checks.  Cash is accepted at the front desk during museum hours. Reservations must be made and paid for prior to 12 Noon on the Thursday before the class session.
 
About the Instructor

Betsy Streeter is a veteran cartoonist and creative professional, with a background in design, film/video production, information architecture and creative management.  Betsy has also been an artist-in-residence at the Cartoon Art Museum.  She currently divides her time between cartooning and humorous illustration, independent art teaching, and raising her two children.