My seeming home-away-from-home, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (at the OSU), re-opens its galleries on May 23 with great one-two punch: a remarkable, first of its kind exhibition of Chris Ware’s work, that he was deeply involved in creating; a new permanent exhibition on the Story of Comics. That second one might sound up my alley—and, in fact, a short video I made about how comic strips were syndicated in the era of metal type appears on a continuous loop in the exhibition. Which means you can hear me talking about flong forever!

You can also watch it here.

The exhibition also includes at least one of the artifacts I donated as part of my research collection to the Billy Ireland—the large semi-cylindrical stereotype printing plate of a page of comics! It’s massive and interesting. The Ware show runs through January; the Story of Comics for some time, until the next permanent exhibition overhaul!

I created the video a few years ago for the museum for an exhibition on Bill Blackbeard that was just fabulous. They used it again for a temporary exhibition that was testing out the idea of a permanent making-comics show. The result is now debuting!