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MoCCA teamed up with Animazing Gallery to present legendary artist Bill Melendez with an Outstanding Achievement Award in his field during the 2006 ArtExpo. Joining in the festivities was Warner Bros artist Dick Duerrstein, who entertained with a wonderful performance art event, similar to that from his 2004 visit to Animazing Gallery in SoHo.
Event Details | MoCCA, Melendez, Duerrstein, and Giella. March 2006, NYC's Jacob Javitz Center
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) Leaps On to The New York City Scene
Museum's Plans and Mission Unveiled at Artists' Reception
On February 28, 2002, The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) hosted its first reception and fundraising event. This event introduced the museum’s mission and philosophy to New York’s artistic community and raised funds toward a permanent location for the museum. MoCCA was chartered in the fall of 2001 to educate the public about the art, history and technique of comic and cartoon art and examine its impact on culture and society.
The reception was held at New York City’s Illustration House, America's foremost gallery devoted to the art and history of illustration The gallery showcased MoCCA's vision for future exhibitions via framed original art from legends across the comic book and cartooning field, including Dr. Seuss, Bill Watterson, Charles Addams, Jack Kirby, Hal Foster, George “Krazy Kat” Herriman, Dr. Seuss, Bill Gallo and many others.
The museum’s planned breadth of historical coverage was amply demonstrated by the wide range of time periods on view: a George DuMaurier illustration from a 19th century issue of famed British humor magazine Punch hung beside an enormous James Thurber pencil cartoon from 1942. The Thurber piece was mounted across the room from an original World’s Finest cover by comic book legend Neal Adams, featuring superhero archetypes Superman and Batman, dating to 1972. Further down the hall, near the refreshments, a Jerry Craft Mama’s Boy original strip from 1999 stared down an exquisite black and white Little Nemo in Slumberland full-pager ninety years its senior. Around the corner, beside a Gary Ernest Smith sculpture depicting Ignitz the Mouse hurling a brick at Krazy Kat’s unsuspecting skull, a cel of cartoon icon Jerry the Mouse (MGM) shared wall space with the cel of potential icon-to-be, John Dillworth’s Courage the Cowardly Dog (Cartoon Network).
“MoCCA’s mission is to be as inclusive as possible, and exhibit as many types of artwork as possible, to better educate and excite the public, and that’s clearly on display tonight,” said Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art chairman Lawrence Klein. “Our plan is to showcase the full diversity of artwork in the comics and cartoon field itself, as well as demonstrate how comics and cartoons offer a window into the history of America and the world.”
“One of the great things about cartoon art is that it has greater pertinence to the social condition than it does to the art condition,” added Illustration House co-proprietor Roger Reed.
To demonstrate MoCCA’s historical mission Reed pointed to another piece in the exhibition, a 1894 Hogan’s Alley one-panel strip by Richard Outcault, famed for premiering America’s first cartoon art superstar, The Yellow Kid. Reed said, “Outcault's cartoons were wildly popular among immigrants in the 1890s because they weren't about the upper strata of society but about themselves, so the drawings became a democratizing vehicle, getting immigrants to buy newspapers and read them, but also to show the upper crust how the poor lived. His drawings were also a way to laugh about something that was becoming intolerable: hordes of homeless children living and working on the streets of the big cities. This was just at the time when Jacob Riis and other reformers were writing about the slums and pushing for mandatory education, and an end to child labor.”
The reception guest list, limited to members of the comics and cartooning community, included such diverse personas as editorial cartoonist Mark Powal (New York Times), DC Comics editor Bob Schreck (Batman), alternative comics creator Dean Haspiel (Opposable Thumbs), film animator Bill Plympton (Plymptoons, The Tune), newspaper strip cartoonists Bunny Hoest (Agatha Crumb, Lockhorns) and Patrick McDonnell (Mutts), political cartoonist Peter Kuper (Spy vs. Spy), graphic designer Chip Kidd (Jack Cole & Plastic Man, Batman Animated) and legendary comic book writer Don McGregor (Sabre).
Proceeds from admission and a fundraising raffle benefited the museum. Raffle prizes included signed books by Michael Chabon (Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay), Chip Kidd, Alex Simmons (Blackjack), signed prints by Hoest and McDonnell, and original art by Bill Plympton, Henrik Rehr (Ferdinand), Scott Roberts (Rugrats) and MoCCA board members Ted Rall (Village Voice) and Klaus Janson (Daredevil, Spider-Man, Dark Knight Returns).
For more information on the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, please call chairman Lawrence Klein at (212) 995-1082 or email lklein@moccany.org.
