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Happy Geek Pride Day!

Did you know today is International Geek Pride Day?  Here in Special Collections, we’re celebrating with a selection from the Comic Art Collection.  This collection contains over 3,500 catalogued comic book titles and hundreds of pieces of original art from cartoonists like Mort Walker, Frank Stack, and John Tinney McCutcheon, ranging in date from the 1850s to the present.

The Comic Art Collection unites fun and fandom with serious scholarship.  It has been used by faculty and students for everything from freshman composition assignments to studies of the history of popular culture.  In 2008, scholars, comic enthusiasts, artists, and students of all interests demonstrated the collection's broad appeal by convening at Ellis Library to celebrate 75 years of the comic strip Alley Oop.  Special Collections holds the papers of the comic strip's creator, V.T. Hamlin.

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Cover from the original Star Wars comic, 1977Cover from Captain America, 1968Cover from a 1987 Batman comicCover from a 1988 Action Comics with SupermanIllustration from a Buck Rogers comic, 1940sCover from Red Ryder Comics, 1942Illustration from Dick Tracy, 1943Cover from Flash Gordon, 1950Cover from a comic book edition of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan,  1960Cover from an Alley Oop comic book, 1955Illustration from a comic version of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, 2001Cover for Fray by Joss Whedon, 2003

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

The Comic Art Collection is open to the public in the Special Collections Reading Room. All patrons – geeks and non-geeks alike – are welcome to make use of these materials.

Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.

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