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The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco has closed its former location, but its traditions continue, including their monthly Cartoonist-in-Residence program that spotlights various creators. January’s event takes place with Rachel Dukes at the art supply shop FLAX at their new locations at 2 Marina Blvd in Fort Mason. The event takes place Saturday, January […]

COMIC BOOK CLUB w/DEAN HASPIEL! On this week’s Comic Book Club we have Emmy-winning Writer/Artist DEAN HASPIEL! He’s got an awesome new auto-biographical collection out called BEEF WITH TOMATO from Alternative Press. We’re going to talk about the book, New York City, Dean’s work on THE FOX and LIFE IN GENERAL. PLUS we’re going to […]

San Francisco's cartoon art-championing institution is searching for a new home.

“Cartoon Art Museum” by User:Tfinc – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

This is sad but not surprising—given the insane rise in real estate prices in San Francisco, it was only a matter of time before the Cartoon Art Museum, which occupied a spacious and accessible spot near Market Street has been evicted so its space can be converted to something expensive and greedy. The museum will stay open until June 28th, and in a release they note that the move was not unexpected and they had already begun preparations, just like Cutter and Skywise.

While a LOT of people have tried to open a comics art museum in the US over the years—Mort Walker, Kevin Eastman, David Gabriel, MoCCA and more—the Cartoon Art Museum, which began as a home for historian Bill Blackbeard’s massive collection. It’s become a staple of the Bay Area’s cultural life with weekly events and classic exhibitions, under the guidance of manager Andrew Farago, executive Director Summerlea Kashar and Board chairman Ron Evans. The museum will last long enough to take part in the first San Francisco Comics Fest, before moving to temporary gallery space while it searched for a permanent home.

Maybe this is a chance for Apple, Google, Twitter, Uber and all those other billion dollar companies to actually show that they care about more than making a buck and sink a little tax free charity dollars into adding to the culture of the area they’ve colonized. Crazy dream, I know.

Following a notice to vacate, the Cartoon Art Museum will be closing its doors at 655 Mission Street on Sunday, June 28, 2015.  The museum, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, began preparing several months ago for a possible relocation and will now continue those efforts in search of temporary gallery space as well as a new long-term home.
 
“This is just another challenge in the life of the Cartoon Art Museum,” says Summerlea Kashar, the museum’s Executive Director. “And given San Francisco’s current commercial real estate market, it’s not very surprising.”
 
The Cartoon Art Museum is the only museum in the western United States dedicated to promoting a greater appreciation of cartoons, comics, animation, and illustration.  Through exhibitions, artist appearances, and community outreach programs, the museum demonstrates how cartoon art entertains, communicates diversity, and champions self-expression.  Thousands of young people have benefited from the museum’s programs and classes in creativity.
 
Over the past three decades, the museum has produced more than 180 exhibitions on topics ranging from politics and sports to children’s literature and Latino culture.  Among the hundreds of artists that have been featured are Kate Beaton, Mary Blair, Roz Chast, Robert Crumb, Dan DeCarlo, Will Eisner, Phil Frank, Dave Gibbons, Edward Gorey, Los Bros. Hernandez, Lynn Johnston, Chuck Jones, Jack Kirby, Keith Knight, Tom Meyer, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, John Romita, Stan Sakai, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, Raina Telgemeier, Garry Trudeau, Morrie Turner, Mort Walker, Bill Watterson, and Wally Wood.
 
The Cartoon Art Museum remains open through late June with many programs slated for the next two months.  In May, the museum will take part in the inaugural San Francisco Comics Fest with an event celebrating San Francisco’s underground comix movement.  It will also play host to Comics 4 Comix, an evening of standup comedy, as well as the second annual Queer Comics Expo.  The museum’s final exhibition at 655 Mission Street will showcase original artwork from Jeffrey Brown’s popular series of Star Wars books, including Goodnight Darth Vader and the forthcoming release Darth Vader and Friends.

“We’re one of San Francisco’s most original educational institutions and a magnet for visitors from around the world,” says Board Chairman Ron Evans. “The staff and board are committed to maintaining the museum as a vital part of the city’s cultural fabric.  We welcome any and all support from those who would like to help us do so.”
 
For information on becoming a museum member, making a financial or in-kind donation, or enlisting as a corporate sponsor, please call 415-227-8666 x 313 or visitcartoonart.org/join-support <http://cartoonart.org/join-support/>.  Supporters are also encouraged to contribute to the Cartoon Art Museum’s capital campaign <http://cartoonart.org/join-support/cartoon-art-museums-future-relocation/> .

As part of Pride Month, San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum will host the first annual Queer Comics Expo (QCE) on June 8th from 11am to 5pm. The museum was previously an incubator for the Latino Comics Expo, and this sounds like another fine event. Details via the announcement below:

The expo encourages attendees to dress up, draw, meet artists, mingle with Queens, watch demonstrations, join conversations, and learn about the fierce LGBTQ world of comic books. In the past few years the museum has been a successful jumpstart for popular local comic conventions like the Latino Comics Expo and APAture.
 
“Now that the Latino Comics Expo has overflowed the space of the galleries with their success it is time to repeat that victory with something new. The Queer Comics Expo is an event we’ve been waiting to do for a while and we finally have the right team to make it fabulous,” said the events co-coordinator and Cartoon Art Museum Bookstore Manager, Heather Plunkett.
 
The Queer Comics Expo is part of the Queer Cultural Center’s National Queer Arts Festival and will be headlined by local Bay Area comics champion Ed Luce. Ed is beloved for his series Wuvable Oaf and his position as an educator for the California College of the Arts Comics MFA.  A former Queer Press Grant Recipient, Ed Luce’s Wuvable Oaf was announced as a new book from Fantagraphics earlier this May.
 
The event also features creators “Along Came Lola” animator and Eisner nominated cartoonist Jett Atwood, Kickstarter success story and writer of “Young Protectors” and Artifice Alex Woolfson,  “Primahood” and former Cartoon Art Museum Small Press Spotlight artist Tyler Cohen, and many more.
 
The Queer Comics Expo will also highlight organizations leading the charge in queer comics like Northwest Press, the premier queer comics publisher and Prism Comics the leading non-profit supporting LGBT comics, creators, and readers with convention appearances and their annual Queer Press Grant.
 
To spice things up the expo will also feature “Super Drag Queens” to mingle with attendees and prizes for the best cosplay!
 
Tickets are for the QCE are included with admission to the Cartoon Art Museum, $8 for the general public/$6 for students and senior citizens, and are available at the door and in advance from the Queer Cultural Center.  Attendees of the Queer Comics Expo will also receive a 10% discount at the Cartoon Art Museum’s bookstore.

As part of Pride Month, San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum will host the first annual Queer Comics Expo (QCE) on June 8th from 11am to 5pm. The museum was previously an incubator for the Latino Comics Expo, and this sounds like another fine event. Details via the announcement below:

The expo encourages attendees to dress up, draw, meet artists, mingle with Queens, watch demonstrations, join conversations, and learn about the fierce LGBTQ world of comic books. In the past few years the museum has been a successful jumpstart for popular local comic conventions like the Latino Comics Expo and APAture.
 
“Now that the Latino Comics Expo has overflowed the space of the galleries with their success it is time to repeat that victory with something new. The Queer Comics Expo is an event we’ve been waiting to do for a while and we finally have the right team to make it fabulous,” said the events co-coordinator and Cartoon Art Museum Bookstore Manager, Heather Plunkett.
 
The Queer Comics Expo is part of the Queer Cultural Center’s National Queer Arts Festival and will be headlined by local Bay Area comics champion Ed Luce. Ed is beloved for his series Wuvable Oaf and his position as an educator for the California College of the Arts Comics MFA.  A former Queer Press Grant Recipient, Ed Luce’s Wuvable Oaf was announced as a new book from Fantagraphics earlier this May.
 
The event also features creators “Along Came Lola” animator and Eisner nominated cartoonist Jett Atwood, Kickstarter success story and writer of “Young Protectors” and Artifice Alex Woolfson,  “Primahood” and former Cartoon Art Museum Small Press Spotlight artist Tyler Cohen, and many more.
 
The Queer Comics Expo will also highlight organizations leading the charge in queer comics like Northwest Press, the premier queer comics publisher and Prism Comics the leading non-profit supporting LGBT comics, creators, and readers with convention appearances and their annual Queer Press Grant.
 
To spice things up the expo will also feature “Super Drag Queens” to mingle with attendees and prizes for the best cosplay!
 
Tickets are for the QCE are included with admission to the Cartoon Art Museum, $8 for the general public/$6 for students and senior citizens, and are available at the door and in advance from the Queer Cultural Center.  Attendees of the Queer Comics Expo will also receive a 10% discount at the Cartoon Art Museum’s bookstore.

The work of British illustration icon Ronald Searle, who passed away two years ago at the age of 91, has influenced countless illustrators, designers, cartoonists, and animators for the past sixty years. One of the artists who can claim to being inspired is veteran story artist Matt Jones, who works at Pixar by day and curates the Ronald Searle Tribute blog by night.

What sets Matt apart from the average fan is that he became friends with Searle during the last years of his life, visiting him numerous times in the south of France and exchanging frequent letters. Now, Jones has hatched a plan to shine greater attention onto Searle’s work in the United States by staging the first-ever West Coast art show of Searle’s artwork. The show, “Searle in America,” will exhibit the drawings that Searle made in America while on reportage assignments for Holiday magazine, like this view of American sailors in Honolulu:

…or this view of a slot player in Las Vegas:

Jones is collaborating on the exhibit with San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum. However, the cost of shipping Searle’s artwork from Europe and printing a catalogue are prohibitively expensive for the non-profit museum. To help raise money for the show, they are organizing an auction of new illustrations and paintings inspired by Searle. The Cartoon Art Museum will begin the auction later this month on eBay and all the money raised will go directly toward the costs of presenting the show.

I’m rooting for them to pull this off because it’ll provide a benefit to the entire visual arts community on the West Coast who will have an opportunity to see Searle’s original artwork. Jones is inviting artists to mail their own Searle-inspired contributions for the auction by July 15th. For more details, you can contact him via this page.

Here’s a preview of some of the artwork that will be auctioned, a lot of it which is created by artists who work in the animation industry: