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Current Exhibits
From Richie Rich to Wendy the Witch: The Art of Harvey Comics
June 28 - November 30, 2008
Opening Reception Friday, August 1, 2008, from 7pm to 9pm
The Cartoon Art Museum proudly presents a visual history of one of the most popular comic book publishers of all time: Harvey Comics. From Richie Rich to Wendy the Witch: The Art of Harvey Comics celebrates the art and characters created and/or popularized by Harvey including Casper, The Friend
ly Ghost; Wendy, The Good Little Witch; Richie Rich, The Poor Little Rich Boy; Hot Stuff, The Little Devil; Sad Sack; Joe Palooka; Little Dot; Little Audrey; Little Lotta, and many more. The exhibition inc
ludes original art from various Harvey comic books and merchandise by stalwarts such as Warren Kremer (1921-2003), who along with animator Steve Muffatti (1880-1968) defined the “Harvey” look.
Harvey Comics was founded in 1941 by Alfred Harvey (1913-1994), with a digest-sized comic book called Pocket Comics that put the company on the map with their line-up of superheroes that included The Black Cat. Various artists and writers who eventually achieved greater success elsewhere got their start at Harvey, including Jack Kirby, Joe Simon and Jim Steranko. By the end of the 1940s, Harvey transitioned to publishing comic books featuring popular comic strips of the day that included Joe Palooka, Dick Tracy, Blondie, Mutt & Jeff and Sad Sack. By the 1950s, romance and horror titles came into the mix.
An inspired bit of licensing in 1952 led to the 1957 purchase of Casper and several other animated cartoon characters created by Paramount Pictures’ Famous Studios, with Baby Huey, Buzzy the Crow, Herman & Katnip and Little Audrey among them. The enormous popularity of these characters spelled the end of the other genres at Harvey, and the company became solely a producer of children’s comics during that era.
Various newly
created characters, such as Richie Rich, Little Dot and Little Lotta, followed the same house style to become a group affectionately known as the “Harvey World,” Though various ownership changes have occurred since the original Harvey shut its doors in 1982, the characters have never ceased to be influential, with hit movies like Richie Rich (1994), starring Macaulay Culkin, or Casper (1995), starring Christina Ricci, or the current five-volume series of Harvey Comics Classics published by Dark Horse Comics.
This exhibition runs through November 30, 2008, and features artwork by Warren Kremer, Ernie Colón, Sid Couchey, Howard Post, Fred Rhoads, Ham Fisher, Dom Sileo, Marty Taras, and many more.
The reception for this exhibition will be held on Friday, August 1, 2008, from 7pm to 9pm. Harvey Comics historians Mark Leonard (editor of The Harveyville Fun Times) and Dave Holt will be in attendance. The reception is free and open to the public.
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Upcoming
Events
From the Horse’s Mouth: Comics Read by Their Creators
Friday, July 18, 2008, from 7pm to 9pm
$5 Suggested Donation
The Cartoon Art Museum and Zine Fest are proud to present From the Horse’s Mouth: Comics Read by their Creators, at the Cartoon Art Museum on Friday, July 18, from 7pm to 9pm. An eclectic line-up of small-press cartoonists will read from their respective works, accompanied by a special PowerPoint presentation. The lineup, consisting of artists who will be exhibiting at this year’s Zine Fest, includes Rina Ayuyang (rinaayuyang.com), Peter Conrad (paperdummy.com), Renée French (reneefrench.com), Justin Hall (allthumbspress.com), Andy Hartzell (andyhartzell.com), Minty Lewis (pscomics.com), MariNaomi (marinaomi.com), Lark Pien (larkpien.com), Joey Sayers (jsayers.com) and Calvin Wong (calwong.org). The suggested donation for this event is $5, although no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
About Zine Fest: Zine Fest, taking place July 19 and 20, 2008, at the SF County Fair Building, serves as a vital annual showcase of the diversity, vitality and ongoing exuberance of the small-press movement. Writers, cartoonists, crafters, illustrators, printmakers and all manner of artists will be in attendance. While the majority of the exhibitors hail from the Bay Area, creators from across the West Coast and beyond will be represented.
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Additional Exhibitions:
Farley’s San Francisco Chronicles:
A Salute to Phil Frank
April 6 - September 14, 2008
The Cartoon Art Museum celebrates the life and legacy of one of the San Francisco Bay Area's most beloved
cartoonists in a special retrospective, Farley’s San Francisco Chronicles: A Salute to Phil Frank. The exhibition includes original art from his nationally syndicated comic strip The Elderberries, panels from Road and Track magazine, his college strip Frankly Speaking, several rarely seen and unpublished works, and his signature comic strip, Farley.
Starting in 1975, first as a nationally syndicated cartoon titled Travels with Farley and, for the last 22 years, as a local feature of the San Francisco Chronicle, Farley was the only local daily comic strip in the country. With this format, a cartoon responding to late-breaking news can appear in the paper for the next day's edition. When syndicated, the lag time between drawing the feature and its appearance in print was five weeks.
About Phil Frank:
Phil Frank, the creator of the comic strips Farley and The Elderberries passed away in September, 2007 after a battle with brain cancer. He is greatly missed by family, friends and fans alike.
Phil was a resident of Sausalito, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, since 1972 along with his wife Susan. Both of his children, Stacy Frank and Phil Frank have benefitted from a creative upbring
ing - each are active in artistic careers as well.
Phil's cartoon illustration, either incorporating characters from the comic strip or drawings designed for the specific client have illustrated materials for the de Young Museum, the S.F. City Treasurer, Small Business Bureau, minority businesses, BART, the San Francisco Giants, the San Francisco Water Conservation department, nume
rous regional utility companies and extensive educational materials for Yosemite National Park.
Phil has had long ties to the park system, initiated by the comic strip. He's a member of the board of the Yosemite Association and is an honorary California State Park Ranger. Susan Frank wrote a series of four guidebooks to National Parks (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Muir Woods) that Phil illustrated. This well received series will be reissued by Avalon Publishers by 2008.
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The Knight Life
Bay Area Spotlight on Keith Knight
June 14 - November 9, 2008
The Cartoon Art Museum is honored to host the first comprehensive exhibition of Harvey and Glyph Award-winning cartoonist Keith Knight, creator of the K Chronicles, (th)ink and the new United Features syndicated daily comic strip The Knight Life
The exhibition, co-sponsored by Dark Horse, coincides with the release of The Complete K Chronicles (Dark Horse/$24.95), the 500 page omnibus collection that incorporates the first four K Chronicles compendiums (three of which are out of print).
Keith Knight, a Bay Area institution whose move to Los Angeles left a gaping whole in the S.F. reprobate and indie comics community, will dig deep into his vast catalog of original artwork for this retrospective. The K Chronicles, (th)ink, the brand new daily comic strip The Knight Life, his work for Mad Magazine and ESPN: The Magazine, Marginal Prophets poster and album art, plus some early high school and college work will be represented in the exhibit.
Information regarding the official reception for this exhibition will be announced shortly.
About Keith Knight
Keith Knight is an award-winning cartoonist whose two self-syndicated comic strips, his humorous, autobiographic
al the K Chronicles and (th)ink, which skewers politics and current events, can be found in over 35 alternative weekly, college and daily newspapers and websites nationwide. He's also a frequent contributor to Mad Magazine and ESPN: The Magazine. His new daily comic strip, the Knight Life, has recently launched, courtesy of United Features Syndicate. For more information visit his website at www.kchronicles.com, >www.knightlifecomic.com or send an email to keef@kchronicles.com.
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Upcoming Exhibits
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Upcoming Events
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Small Press Spotlight
Featuring: Andy Hartzell
May 10 - August 10, 2008
Opening reception:
Thursday May 29th, 7pm to 9pm
Beginning on May 10, 2008, the Cartoon Art Museum's ongoing Small Press Spotlight will feature the art of Andy Hartzell.
Andy Hartzell has been spinning stories in a variety of media for all his life. Some of his earliest memories involve turning empty stamp-books into little comics. In third grade, he commandeered the school ditto machine to churn out sheaves of single-panel gags for the benefit of his classmates. But it wasn’t until his college years, when he discovered the work of comics pioneers like George Herriman and Robert Crumb, that he was turned on to the real potential of the medium.
Hartzell is a partisan of cartoony cartoons. He likes characters that can only function as squiggles on
paper. He likes stories that openly revel in symbols and stereotypes, setting up expectations and knocking them down. He likes the way cartoon icons can penetrate through layers of rational consciousness to connect with our most basic fears and desires. And it’s a plus if they’re funny.
Hartzell’s first completed graphic novel was published by Top Shelf Productions in 2007. Fox Bunny Funny is a twisty little wordless fable that pits social violence against secret desire. It was praised as “a jewel of design and comedy” by the New York Times Book Review and went on to win last year’s Maisie Kukoc Award (along with his mini-comic The Rise and Fall of Yip the Wonder Dog).
Monday, a Garden-of-Eden fantasia, plays out the eternal struggle between Creativity and Control through a brand new adventure starring the world’s oldest characters. Issue #2 of this ongoing story was nominated for an Ignatz Award.
Hartzell’s work has been featured in a number of anthologies, including Boy Trouble and the most recent issue of Papercutter. His weekly strip Fool’s Paradise ran in several alternative weeklies during the second half of the 1990s, and his self-published comic Bread & Circuses was a 1995 Xeric winne
r.
About the Small Press Spotlight:
San Francisco has been a hotbed of innovative, groundbreaking comic art
since the late 1800s with the advent of the modern comic strip.
In the1960s, the Bay Area gained further notoriety when
cartoonists like Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, S. Clay Wilson and
Trina Robbins launched the underground comix movement from San
Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Today, some of the biggest names
in alternative and small-press comics hail from the Bay Area, and the
Cartoon Art Museum's Small Press Spotlight will focus on these talented
individuals.
The Small Press Spotlight is funded in part by The Zellerbach Family
Foundation and The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation.
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