Comic Art Collection

One of the publications that made me feel right at home and not so isolated when I began organizing the Washington State University comix collection in the early 1980s was a periodical called Comic Art Collection.

Edited by my fellow librarian Randy Scott, this was "a newsletter from the Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection" at Michigan State University. I was able to point to the existence of this serial as confirmation to my nervous WSU fellow faculty as proof comix were a valuable part of the human experience and worth preserving.

MSU was a real beacon of hope for me back then, and Randy, whether he knew it or not, was something of a professional role model for me.

The publication ran from 1979 to 1992, then changed title to Comic Art Studies. I drew Morty for the Feb. 2, 1985 issue, and wrote a short piece for the August 1988 issue.

Randy, also known as Randall W. Scott, has written several books about comic art librarianship and cataloging.

Artpaper: The Activist Librarians

Chris and Jan put this together for the December 1989 issue of Artpaper. Today the idea of an academic library comic collection is taken for granted. Public libraries are even giving workshops on how to make your own books-- Newave style. And little library zine collections are everywhere.

But back in the 1980s this was still considered a bit on the edge. The comic art librarians are mentioned in the last part of the article, taking special notice of the amazing Randall Scott, Michigan State University librarian and, I'm happy to say, one of the gang who subscribed to the old City Limits Gazette. Jim Danky, the Wisconsin librarian (an co-editor of Alternative Library Literature) in this piece, was especially helpful to Jay Kennedy when the Guide was assembled.

Cutters for Underground and Newave Comix Publishers, WSU Comix Collection : Incorporating Cutters Assigned by MSU (With Some Modifications)

1st edition, 1993, unknown number of copies, perhaps it was a print-on-demand. Enlarged digest size.

Special Fandom House Edition, 1994, 10 copies.

This was a publication designed for comix librarians and was likely sent to all the academic libraries with comic collections at the time.

Some definitions:

WSU is Washington State University, where I worked as a librarian and faculty in mid-1980s.

MSU is Michigan State University, home to one of the world's largest collections of comic art.

Cutters are part of the call number formula for the Library of Congress Classification (used by most academic libraries). Although a cutter is a descriptive term, it is named after Charles Ammi Cutter (1837-1903).

The WSU inputting project was my personal effort to record the WSU comix collection into an online catalog long after I left that place.

The WSU comix collection is explained in the introduction of this scanned book. Apparently the collection today is not totally cataloged. The collections of English prof. Paul Brians and the late collector Lynn Hansen are inventoried, but the titles I have collected for WSU have yet to be fully processed, although I did manage to get 1700 of them cataloged online and access can be gained by looking in the WSU catalog under "comix collection."

MSU librarian (and City Limits Gazette subscriber!) Randy Scott literally wrote the book on how to catalog comix. This cutter list was basically a supplement to his excellent work.

WLN: First known as the Washington Library Network, then Western Library Network, then just WLN. I was a WLN employee, and proud of it, from 1988-1991. This organization was taken absorbed into OCLC in 1999.

Ed Kukla was a WSU rare book librarian who assisted in providing advice for processing and preserving the comix. John Guido was the head of WSU Rare Books, and in a pivotal position to buck the prevailing conservative winds and stand by the decision to create the comix collection. He's the real reason the collection exists. May he rest in peace. Laila Vejzovic was a librarian who arrived at WSU after I left and was very active and enthusiastic in building and marketing the comix collection. I never met her but we talked on the phone and corresponded once in awhile. Gary Usher and the late Jay Kennedy are two important names associated with comix bibliography.

The two lists are interesting in that the underground publisher roster is much shorter. Many of the Newavers complained that the underground publishers became very closed to new artists, relying on a proven star system of just a few names. But the rise and development of photocopy technology opened up the self-publishing game for a whole new generation of cartoonists, as evidenced by the much longer list of Newave publishers.

My cutter book serves as sort of a directory of underground and Newave comix publishers up to 1993. It was compiled on an electric typewriter.