Bill Blackbeard: the Collector Who Rescued the Comics
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SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE LIBRARY GAZETTE Vol. XLIII 2010 Bill Blackbeard: The Collector Who Rescued the Comics n January of 1998, a team of movers arrived at this typical, unassuming Spanish stucco home in the quiet residential neighborhood Iknown as the Sunset District of San Francisco. Inside, it was anything but typical. The movers discovered that every nook and cranny was overflowing Blackbeard's San Francisco home with printed material of all shapes and sizes—books, magazines, comic books, pulps, story papers, prints, posters and, most importantly, newspapers—bound newspapers, individual newspapers, newspaper tearsheets, and newspaper clippings. The massive collection filled most of the 12 rooms upstairs and the entire ground-floor garage that ran the length of the building. Walking down the stairs to the immense garage, they saw a maze of narrow alleys created by floor-to-ceiling stacks of individual newspaper pages and bound newspaper volumes, boxes and file cabinets containing millions of comic strip clippings; and rows of shelves made from Kin-der-kids by Lionel crates turned on their sides housing all Feininger, May 6, 1906 kinds of popular narrative. Feininger was an established In addition to housing the collection, known as the San German artist at the time he Francisco Academy of Comic Art, the building also served as the was recruited to create comics. This strip featured the Kin- residence of the man responsible for collecting this mass of paper: der-kids taking off on a sea Bill Blackbeard. He lived there with his wife, Barbara, and over adventure in the family bathtub. 75 tons of popular culture material. Feininger is most famous for A few months earlier, the Blackbeards, who had lived in this his paintings, which were heavily influenced by cubism, house for decades, learned that the new owner of the building and for his affiliation with the would not renew their lease and he wanted them and all of this Bauhaus school. material out. Blackbeard began negotiations with Ohio State’s All images courtesy of Ohio Cartoon Research Library, and it was eventually decided that State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Jenny Robb, Assistant Professor and Associate Curator of the Bill Blackbeard with his collection Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University, was the Gerhard Masur Memorial speaker at the spring Friends of Library and Friends of Art. Her talk was “Bill Blackbeard: the Collector who Rescued the Comics. the only way to save the material, was presented problems: there was no index to move it all to Columbus, OH. With of which papers ran which strips and only a few days to go, the movers faced it often changed from day to day or the daunting task of packing the entire month to month. collection to be shipped across the Plus, Blackbeard soon discovered country. The collection was by far the that even this last resort would not be largest ever acquired by the Library a viable alternative for long. Librarians and is one of its most important for the across the country had encountered study of popular culture in general and problems of their own with regards graphic narrative —or sequential art—in to the over-sized newspaper volumes. particular. They were running out of room to Bill Blackbeard grew up in Lawrence, Indiana. Blackbeard was born in 1926. store them, and they feared that the old He spent his early childhood in the After high school, Blackbeard joined newsprint—due to the acidic nature of rural town of Lawrence, Indiana. His the army in 1944 and served in Europe the paper—would deteriorate over time grandfather operated a service station; during WWII. Next he attended college becoming brittle and unusable, even father was an electrician; mother until his GI funding ran out then turning to dust. handled the bookkeeping side of her became a free-lance writer, including A solution borrowed from the world husband’s business. When he was authoring stories for the pulps. of military technology gained popularity approximately 8 or 9, he moved to He continued to develop his interest starting in the mid-twentieth century: Newport Beach, CA. in the humanities and popular literature. microfilm. Libraries could have long His interest in newspaper comics In 1967, Blackbeard saw the need for runs of newspapers microfilmed, then started when he was a child. The high a scholarly history of the newspaper transfer, sell or destroy the original point of the week for young Blackbeard comic strip. The comic strip, created paper volumes. The microfilm would, was the arrival of the Sunday comics.1 in the mid 1890s to sell newspapers of course, take up only a fraction of At some point in his youth, he made and amuse the masses, had rarely the storage space and proponents the happy discovery that many people been considered worthy of promised that it would last longer then accumulated stacks of newspapers in serious analysis or study. their basements and garages; sometimes Several pioneering efforts3 to use as wrapping or scrap paper; fell short of the up-to-date sometimes because they just didn’t get and accurate history that around to disposing of them (Those Blackbeard intended to were the days before recycling). When write. By the late 1960s, I interviewed Blackbeard for this social history and popular project, he said “Once I discovered culture studies were gaining this, I had no other interest in life than respect as legitimate fields finding these caches of newspapers.” of academic inquiry, and He mined the newspapers for their he sold the concept to the comic pages, which he eagerly read and Oxford University Press. began to keep in stacks, although he But Blackbeard faced a complained that his mother didn’t allow dilemma. In order to be able him enough space in the house to keep to write about the origins, San Fran Call, June 21, 1903 On the left is the microfilm of the page. them, so he limited himself to daily trends and advances, and On the right is a scan from the original tearsheet. In the microfilm comic pages and Sunday sections from social significance of comic version, we lose not only color but text as well. Also, this piece is one or two newspapers. strips through the years, particularly interesting because of the unusual color printing method. Although collecting often runs in Multiple plates were used but the color areas are solid instead of a he would need to access dot screen, making only three colors possible. It demonstrates the families, it seems that Blackbeard did complete runs of individual truly experimental nature of newspaper color printing at the time, not inherit his collecting obsession strips. But no such archive which can’t be seen on the microfilm. or his interest in comics from his existed. The syndicates parents. When asked if either of them routinely destroyed original the newsprint. In addition, copies of collected anything, he replied “Oh no, comic strip drawings and proofs that the microfilm could be sold to other I’m afraid they were pretty much the they no longer wanted to store; and libraries, who could then dispose of typical fine people of their time. No, few cartoonists kept complete records their paper volumes. The Library there was no interest along that line at of their strips. He knew that the comics of Congress began its newspaper all.”2 He said that there was nothing in could be found in the bound newspaper microfilming project in 1950; other family background, going back to his volumes in libraries, but even that public and university libraries followed grandparents that would indicate an their lead. 4 interest in collecting. 3 including The Seven Lively Arts by Gilbert In the late 1960s, when Blackbeard Seldes, [a writer, editor and cultural critic], was trying to figure out the best 1 Interview with Bill Blackbeard, May 14, Comics and Their Creators: Life Stories of 2007. American Cartoonists by Martin Sheridan, and 2 Ibid. The Comics by Coulton Waugh 4 Ibid, p. 26-34.? 2 way to research comic strips, the San “An obsession organized” In a 1975 brochure, Blackbeard Francisco Public Library also made the wrote “The Academy founder and decision to dispose of a portion of its Collecting comic strips became more director is in residence at the Academy bound newspaper collection. He knew than a hobby and more than a career; with his wife (who is employed some the librarians there and offered it became his way of life. Blackbeard elsewhere), and is thus able to work to take the volumes off their hands and his San Francisco Academy of with the collections and Academy rather than see them go to the dump; Comic Art epitomize the definition of a undertakings during his waking but, according to Bill, the library’s collection in an essay called “Calm and hours seven days a week.” In another policies prohibited them transferring Uncollected,”7. The author defines a brochure, he promises 24-hour the volumes to a private individual. So collection as “an obsession organized” accessibility to the material. Blackbeard decided to become a non- and he goes on to say of the collector, Russell Belk points out in Collecting profit organization. He said, “I never “if he has any introspection, he in a Consumer Society, that collecting did anything so fast in my life. In less begins at some point to sense that the is a form of consumption but it is than a week, I was the San Francisco collection possesses him.” This is very also a creative and productive act.9 Academy of Comic Art.”5 The San fitting for Blackbeard.