Ohio State University isn’t just your average, everyday, mild-mannered midwestern college. It’s also the home of Ohio State’s Cartoon Library and Museum, the largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting printed cartoon art in the world. With last year’s merger of Mort Walker’s International Museum of Cartoon Art‘s collection into the Cartoon Library and Museum, it also boasts the world’s largest single collection of original cartoon art with approaching half a million original cartoons as well as thousands of books, serial titles and manuscripts and 2.5 million comic strip clippings and tear sheets. The OSUCLM sponsors programs related to cartoon art by mounting exhibits on campus, lending for exhibits elsewhere, and hosting speakers, seminars, workshops and conferences. The Festival of Cartoon Art, held triennially since 1983, attracts participants from around the world.

Recently the Cartoon Library and Museum has announced plans to renovate Sullivant Hall on campus to become the new home of the Library, featuring a true museum-quality gallery and archival space. This future home of the Cartoon Library and Museum will ensure the protection and accessibility of these precious examples of art and culture.

Of course all this takes money, and donations are gratefully accepted and needed by the OSUCLM. Recently the widow of Peanuts legend Charles Schulz, Jeannie Schulz, generously donated one million dollars to OSUCLM to support the renovation of Sullivant Hall. Moreover, Jeannie issued the following challenge: she will match each dollar donated to the OSUCLM through March 9th, 2014, up to $2.5 Million. That doubles every dollar donated for the next 4 years!

That is an amazing thing and it makes any donations to the Cartoon Library and Museum twice the value. Please consider donating a few bucks to the effort, and many thanks to Jeannie for her tremendous generosity.

Here’s a video with some more info on the Cartoon Library and Museum:

The phrase “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind today as I post another time-lapse video from my 1993 “demo reel” of live caricature samples I used in some of my mall locations. This subject is Bruce Willis. Of all the ones I did on this original video, this one might stand up the best as Willis looks much the same… just craggier.

Many times I have sang the praises of writer extraordinaire Mark Evanier‘s blog, an example of blogging at it’s entertaining and informative best.

Mark recently wrote about a topic he occasionally touches on… the dreaded “working on spec” issue. Well, not exactly working on spec as that implies working on an actual project for a professional client. I’m talking about the jobs that come along from someone with a million dollar idea but a ten dollar bank account who only needs your work to complete the idea and to make the millions… whereupon you will then share in the riches. I’ve blogged about these issues before as well, and on the actual “working on spec” issue as well as giving your work away for nothing or next to it.

Doing this is damaging to everybody, not just those who foolishly agree to work under such an agreement, because it devalues creative work in general.

Mark says in part:

I mention all this because first of all, we all need that constant reminder. If you think you’re creating something of value, treat it as something of value. No one else will if you don’t. That means insisting on being paid that value and not in hypothetical, down-the-road bucks. There are times when it makes sense to invest but when you do, you have to think a little like an investment banker. Their success is 100% contingent on knowing which stocks are good gambles and recognizing that many are not.

Mark links to several columns he’s written on the subject, which are must reads. He also mentions the blog of illustrator Colleen Doran, who has written about some of her bad experiences in the same area. Horror stories like this can really wake you up and give you the wherewithall to protect the value of your work and say “no” when these types of situations arise.

I posted this today simply because you can never have enough reminders or repeated discussion about this topic.

Click image for a closer look…

Here’s a sketch I’ve been meaning to do for some time- Kate Gosselin and her little clan of money makers (Jon has abandoned them… well HER at any rate… in the caricature and in real life). The entire “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ tabloid saga is so sickening that it’s become beyond sad. It’s the perfect example of how money and fame often changes people for the worse. I have no sympathy at all for the parents, as they have made their bed and at any time could have just stopped it all and gone back to focusing their efforts on their family and their marriage. Instead they embraced their fame and cashed the checks, so they have only themselves to blame for their situation. The kids are the sad part. They did not ask for nor have a say in being part of this circus. I hope they end up with some semblance of a normal life.

… I ran across this yesterday courtesy of the Wisenhiemer cartoonist’s forum:

That’s right. This genius actually emailed the copyright owner of images he had stolen off said owner’s website, (using hotlinks and stealing his bandwidth no less) and threatened to SUE HIM unless he puts the images back up immediately. You can see more email fun and read the whole story here.

Honestly, I hope this is just an urban legend and the link above is a gag. Yes, there really are people that ignorant and uneducated about the basics of copyright operating businesses out there, but more shocking is the example of the unbelievable sense of ENTITLEMENT that people have over the content on the internet. It’s out there, it’s accessible… therefore it must be FREE. You would think it would be common sense that images on another person’s website are not your images, and you can’t just use them with impunity. Yet many people do because they can. The scary thing is that people think so little of it, and it doesn’t occur to them it is stealing.

The eventual resolution to this was the person who threatened legal action if the images he was stealing were not replaced so he could continue to infringe on the owner’s copyright did consult his lawyer, who promptly pointed out his mistake. According to the story I linked to above, the offender apologized to the copyright owner but then simply went out and found new images to infringe upon for his website.

All you can do is shake your head and lament the decline of civilization as we know it.

UPDATE- My pal Ed Steckley tells me this is a gag that has made the rounds in the last week or so just to get people worked up. I suspected it might be but then again I’ve seen some stupid things in my time.

As long as we are talking a lot this week about theme park caricatures, display samples, etc., here are three new samples I drew and painted while working at Valleyfair last week. Frequent readers of The MAD Blog will recognize these as past drawings from the “Sketch o’the Week”:

Could not resist adding the lollypop…

Q: This is a simple question that I started wondering about when I saw your photos of your operations in St Louis. I see you have examples of caricatures in your various shops. Are these examples of your work or the work of the artists that work in your shops? If these are the hired artist’s own examples then my question is mute. I ask this only because I remember you telling of other artists being caught using your work as their examples. This would seem to be the same thing except that you are granting permission for the usage of the drawings. The drawings are not “stolen” but still not legit examples. Just wondering about your thoughts on this.

A: Actually I get this question every once and awhile, usually from other live caricaturists that think having my caricature samples up at a caricature booths where I very seldom work constitutes false advertising… that customers are being led to believe they are getting a drawing done by me when instead some other artist is going to draw them.

Considering I often voice my displeasure about street caricaturists who print off sample caricatures of mine and of other caricaturists and try to pass them off as their own, I have to admit that is a legitimate question. Aren’t I sanctioning the same thing in hanging my samples in all my theme park operations?

No. That is a different animal, and here is why;

Firstly, my caricature booths are not staffed by only one artist. We have large crews of as many as 16 different artists who work various locations all summer long in any given theme park. Samples from multiple artists, clearly signed by different people, are on display in every location. Some are mine, but most are done by the artists from that specific park. In other words, my samples are just some of the samples that are hanging up. I encourage everyone to have at least one sample up in each location. We are clearly not trying to pass off all the drawings on display in a location as that of the artist(s) who happens to be sitting there that day, unlike the afore mentioned street artists. Besides, although I do not draw in any of my locations regularly I DO draw in them occasionally… at least once a season and usually more, so it’s only fair I have some samples up.

Secondly, although individual drawing styles differ somewhat all the caricaturists working with my operations work in the same techniques, and the samples are meant to be representative not of specific artist’s work but of those techniques. Either I or one of my managers teaches these techniques to our artists, and it’s not much of a stretch to have the guy who’s work everyone’s training is based on have his samples on display even if I am not drawing there regularly.

Finally, and this might be the most definitive reason, these are my booths and my operations, and if I want to hang up my own samples then I get to do so. I built the buildings, bought the frames the samples are placed in, the paper, paint and pencil lead they’re drawn with and the screws that affix them to the wall and pay the rent to keep it all there so as far as I’m concerned, that buys me the right to display what I want to display. In other words, it’s my playground so I get to pick the game.

Sorry if that sounds a little defensive, but whenever I get this question that is my natural reaction.

I think there is a big difference between having the owner of a caricature stand displaying some of his or her own work (along with the work of the artists to regularly work there) and some street artist stealing the work off the internet and either redrawing it, signing their names to a print or otherwise passing the work off as their own. I have always took great pains to make sure we operate in an ethical and honest manner. The artists that work at my locations are instructed not to claim any work on the walls is theirs if it is not if they are asked. They are encouraged to do their own samples so they have something to point out if asked which of the drawings on the wall are theirs. I even make sure that the vast majority of the samples on display are true examples of what a live drawing ends up looking like, and not some elaborate illustration that would be impossible (or at least very difficult) to duplicate in a reasonable time drawing live. I do allow a certain number of “WOW” sort of samples with some more detailed background or scene, but even those use no tools or techniques that we do not employ in our live work, and our price signs do clearly state that “full bodies and theme may be extra”.

As far as I’m concerned, our policies on caricature samples on display are perfectly fair and ethical. I do understand where the question was coming from, however. Thanks for asking.

Thanks to Marv Sohlo from Woodbury, MN for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

Director Ray Griggs tells me that the Super Capers DVD will be released on July 21st, and will be available mainly in online stores like Amazon, and the list of brick and mortar stores above

I received an interesting recent e-mail from a gentleman named José González aka “Pepe Badillo”, a cartoonist from Mexico. He wanted to tell me about the 41st anniversary of the first issue of Nausea, a “Mexican comic magazine inspired in MAD Magazine” that he and his friend, writer Emilio Esquivel, published for 12 issues from June 1968 to June 1970. José was one of only three artists working with Emilio producing the magazine, which he says doing was the fulfillment of a dream.

An interior page from Nausea Magazine of a parody of the TV Shoe ‘Combat”

I’d never heard of Nausea. I’ve heard of the several incarnations of the “official ” licensed Mexican MAD Magazine (you can read about them here on Dick Hanchette’s CollectMAD website while the link still lasts) but this one was new to me. Nausea post dates any of the official Mexican MAD‘s by 10 years. Back in those days it was a lot harder to publish a comic book on your own… before desktop publishing, internet storefronts and cheap overseas printing made publishing something anybody can do from their kitchen table. I can’t imagine the work, money and effort that must have gone in to getting something like this off the ground and keep it going for 12 issues.

I wish I could find out more info about Nausea, but the web is woefully deficient in dedicated Nausea sites.Seriously, it just goes to show that not everything is documented to death on the internet.

So… Happy Anniversary, Nausea!

I spent a rare day yesterday drawing live caricatures at my Valleyfair concessions. Here’s some pictures of our three locations at the park and some of the live ones I did.