Printed Matter is the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists. Founded as a for-profit alternative arts space in 1976 by artists and artworkers, Printed Matter reincorporated in 1978 to become the independent non-profit organization that it is today… Recognized for years as an essential voice in the increasingly diversified art world conversations and debates, Printed Matter is dedicated to the examination and interrogation of the changing role of artists’ publications in the landscape of contemporary art.

Printed Matter’s mission is to foster the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists’ publications, which we define as books or other editioned publications conceived by artists as art works, or, more succinctly, as ‘artwork for the page.’ Printed Matter specializes in publications produced in large, inexpensive editions and therefore does not deal in ‘book arts’ or ‘book objects’ which are often produced in smaller, more expensive editions due to the craft and labor involved in their fabrication. –From the Printed Matter website.

Printed Matter maintains a public reading room, a wholesale and retail distribution center, and gallery space.  They publish, host book readings, and lectures.  They participate in larger book events as well.  Their participation in educational outreach has been a vital part of the definition and awareness of Artists’ books.

The other day, NPR reported on the over $200,000 worth of damage that occurred during Hurricane Sandy.  The Chelsea store was flooded and about 9000 books were destroyed.  Volunteers came from all over to help out and managed to salvage a number of boxes of wet materials.  With the aid of a grant, these were sent to a restoration company called Polygon, where the materials were freeze dried to remove the water.  Printed Matter will need to find new storage space that is not in a basement and a benefit auction is planned for the spring. You can listen to the broadcast or read a transcript of the story.

Of course, if you have a scheduling conflict and need to do research in Special Collections, we will always work with you to accommodate you. With a little notice, we can pull materials for you and make it available in another part of the library during evenings and weekends. And, we are always happy to schedule class visits for evening classes. Just let us know!

It is worth looking at to see what some of the premier Special Collections have to offer.   For example, Trinity College in Dublin houses the original Book of Kells, and Oberlin College has a huge collection of music.  Not surprisingly, Yale and Harvard are on the list as well, with their broad collections that have been hundreds of years in the making.  They also include the Jazz Archives at Tulane, which not only houses music, but also, the devices to play it on.  The Comic Arts Collection at Virginia Commonwealth is included, as well.   There are some I would add to the list, including the Popular Culture collections at Michigan State University and Ohio State.  And quite a few colleges and universities have very large collections of Artists’ Books, including our own SCAD Atlanta’s ACA Library.

Well, we may not have collections that make the top 20, but we are the only college or university to have the huge archive of an animation studio, the Don Bluth Collection of Animation.  We have a rapidly growing collection of Artists’ Books.  We collect Graphic non-fiction and limited edition graphic novels.  We have a little of everything in the rare book world.  We are very proud of our excellent Special Collections here at the Jen Library and love to share it!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876, First American Edition. (click cover for catalog record)

Somehow mixed in among the British titles are a number of works by Mark Twain.  It was unexpected to find them with the British literature, but I suppose it should not have been too big of a surprise.  Twain’s works were as popular in England as they were in the United States, and many of the titles were published simultaneously in London and in the US.

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson: and the comedy Those extraordinary twins, 1894, 1st American Edition. (cick cover for catalog record)

The books in the collection are largely first editions in various states.  Trying to interpret state provides a fascinating look into the publishing world of the time.  The difference in value between first edition, first state, and first edition, second or third state can be thousands of dollars, so it helps to know what state you have.  But some of the differences are very subtle and some are disputed as to whether a small mark in the frontispiece indicates first or second state.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1880, First British Edition. (click cover for catalog record)

Examining the books for the small details of state allows one to read tiny excerpts.  Most of us read at least one book by Twain in school such as the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.  We may nostalgically remember that they were comical and sometimes sweet while at the same time providing biting social commentary. Even if the situations seemed dated, the humor was always relevant, the style so easy to read, and the stories seemed timeless.   Come in to take a look at some of these Twain classics.  Of course, we have most of Twain’s work available as e-books through the Library’s catalog also.

Gary Panter was born December 1, 1950 in Durant, Oklahoma. He went to school in Texas, lived in California for a while, and now resides in Brooklyn.  In trying to understand Gary Panter, it should be noted that he defies categorization into any genre, and he is an amazingly prolific artist.

He became noticed in the 1970s as a California punk designer of flyers and album art for various bands.  At that time, he also exhibited his first major paintings and continues to paint.  Panter and Pee Wee Herman began a long collaboration and he designed the sets and puppets for Pee Wee’s Playhouse, which garnered him several Emmy awards in the 1980s.  He contributed to Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly’s Raw magazineand other comic anthologies.  He became a legend in punk and underground comics, influencing such people as Matt Groening.  In the 1990s, he published seven issues of his Jimbo comic book.  He had designed Jimbo in the 1970s as a sort of alter-ego.  He also is a musician and a designer and stager of light shows.  And he makes sculptures.  This is not an exhaustive list.

Jimbo in Purgatory, cover.

In addition to comics, Panter has also published several books featuring Jimbo.  Special Collections has the Fantagraphics limited editions of two of them: Jimbo in Purgatory, published in 2004, and Jimbo’s Inferno, published in 2006.   Each book is signed and numbered and has a block engraving tipped in.   These books are loosely based on Dante’s Divine Comedy.  In Jimbo in Purgatory, Jimbo meets icons such as Frank Zappa, John and Yoko, robots and dragons.  Each character is a stand-in for a character in Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Jimbo's Inferno, cover.

In Jimbo’s Inferno, Panter borrows dialogue as much from from Lewis Carroll and Frank Zappa as he did from Dante. Hell in Panter’s version is a giant shopping mall called Focky Bocky.  Jimbo’s Inferno was awarded the American Book Award in 2007.  Panter was the second Fantagraphics published author to win the prestigious award.   Joe Sacco’s Palestine was a recipient in 1996.

Panter warns:

“Don’t try to pass a pop quiz on Dante’s Hell based on a reading of this comic,” … “It won’t work. Even though the comic is engorged with Dante’s Hell and though Jimbo mouths a super-condensed version of what happens in The Inferno, canto by canto, characters are fused, actions inverted, parodied, subject to mutation by my odd memories and obsessions and whims…”  Source

Facetasm: H simulated and real, cover

In addition to the Jimbo books, Special Collections holds a copy of an artists’ book, Facetasm : h simulated and real by Gary Panter and Charles Burns.  We also have a number of issues of Raw magazine, which he contributed to.

Gibson Girl from cartoon published in Volume 59, number 1540, page 922, on 5/2/1912

Gibson steadily improved. He sold work to other major magazines and was called on to illustrate books as well. By 1889, he had saved enough to go to Europe to study there. He came back in 1890 to contribute regularly to a number of publications, including a weekly submission to Life. Gibson’s most celebrated figure, the Gibson Girl, had her early appearances in Life around this time. She was a beautiful, confident, athletic, thoroughly modern woman. She was kind but did not suffer fools gladly. She epitomized the turn-of-the-century American ideal of a truly American aristocracy. Not only was she immensely popular, she soon became a marketing bonanza and appeared on a wide variety of items, even wallpaper.

Life, Volume 59, number 1546, page 1217, on 6/13/1912.

Gibson married Irene Langhorne in 1895. His elegant new bride and her sister, Nancy Astor, served as inspiration for his ever popular Gibson Girls. But even before the end of World War I, the Gibson Girl’s popularity was fading and began to be replaced by John Held’s Flapper, a more modern and fun-loving woman.

Though best know for his cartoons of beautiful women and befuddled men, Gibson also drew cartoons that addressed social and political issues of the day.  He and Mitchell were fiery, pro-American war advocates, trying to push the country into World War I as early as 1914.

Life, Volume 60, number 1568, page 2202, on 8/8/1912.

When John Ames Mitchell died in 1918, Gibson bought the magazine for $1 million. By then, the publishing world had changed, encompassing a cruder and more cynical outlook. Life’s clean fun format caused it to struggle to compete. Even though Gibson managed to hire the most talented authors, artists, and editorial staff, the magazine continued to lose popularity. The New Yorker, publishing its first issue in 1925, copied much of the best of Life’s style and format, and wooed away much of its editorial and art staff. Gibson retired, turning Life over to publisher, Clair Maxwell, and treasurer, Henry Richter. By that time, the magazine had gone from a weekly to a monthly.

Life, Volume 67, number 1638, page 298, on 2/17/1916.

Gibson was the president of Society of Illustrators in the 1910s. During World War I, he headed a government agency that produced war posters. On his retirement, he began painting in oil. He died in 1944.

Charles Dana Gibson’s work is part of our digital project on the Images of Life. To see more, go to the Images of Life site. We also have a few books on Gibson such as The Gibson book: a collection of the published works of Charles Dana Gibson and we have a great collection of Life magazines with Gibson’s work.

Crossing the Tigris, Volumes 1-3.

Crossing the Tigris, inside of enclosure.

One of the artists, Jeff Morin, describes it this way: “A narrative in three books recounting soldier’s stories from the Iraq War. This is a collaborative project between Jeffrey Morin, Caren Heft, and Brian Borchardt. The collaborators each found stories in the media that recount horrific situations that are inconceivable to those who work regularly with current or former soldiers who happen to be students or artists.”

Crossing the Tigris, inside page, Volume 1.

A statement by the presses about the book: “The container for this collaboration is meant to embody the conundrum of this person who transforms into a beast capable of horrendous acts against innocents. The outside of the container is collaged in the same way that a boy might decorate his hiding place for treasures found. The elements, like currency, targets, or stamps, are in the realm of childhood values. The inside of the container sets the stage for juvenile battle. These are the props for pretend war. When confronted with the grittiness of war, do these ill-prepared young men simply break with realty? Are they taught that they are above the law? Or do they learn to devalue what is not obviously American? Neither the container nor the three books answer the questions posed above. We all know young soldiers who have served or those who could serve. This collaboration is intended to catalyze a conversation about the nature of change that allows potentially decent people to commit indecent acts.”

Crossing the Tigris, inside page, Volume 2.

If you want to see more, or want to study the text, the artists have provided images of every page of all 3 volumes on the sailorBOYpress site. The 3 volume book was published in 2011 in an edition of 60. Jen Library’s Special Collections copy is number 27. Each 36 page book is letterpress printed with collage elements and inclusions. The books utilize handmade paper and hand sewn bindings and are presented in a four sided drop letter fold box, tied with twine.

Crossing the Tigris, inside page, Volume 3.

Life Magazine's Cherub mascot.

Our newest digital project, Images From Life, brings some of the classic cartoons, covers, and ads from the first Life magazine out from the archives. Life magazine was founded January 4, 1883 by John Ames Mitchell and Andrew Miller in a New York artist’s studio. Miller served as secretary-treasurer and managed the business side. Mitchell, an illustrator, served as its publisher. He invested in a revolutionary new printing process using zinc-coated plates which improved the reproduction of illustrations and artwork. This helped give Life an edge over its completion from the successful, established humor magazines, Judge and Puck. They hired Edward Sandford Martin, founder of the Harvard Lampoon, as the first literary editor.

Their introductory issue had the motto: “While there’s Life, there’s hope.” They let the readers know that while they would address issues of politics, fashion, society, religion, literature, etc., they would do so with “casual cheerfulness,” speaking fairly, truthfully, and decently. They also wanted to have fun.

Life's Motto: Where there is Life, there's Hope.

By 1893, Life magazine decided to construct its own building. It included studio space and apartments for the artists, to create home within Life’s home. The firm of John Mervyn Carrere and Thomas Hastings created a Beaux Arts building and contracted Philip Martiny to create a sculpture for the entrance of the building. He created Winged Life, the cherub that became the symbol of Life magazine throughout its existence. The building now serves as the Herald Square Hotel. If you go to their site, you will find a lot of information on Life magazine and its artists.

Many famous illustrators and authors were contributors to Life. One of the most important was Charles Dana Gibson who sold his first contribution, an illustration of a dog outside his kennel howling at the moon, to Life for $4. Gibson’s most celebrated figure, the Gibson Girl, had her early appearances in Life in the 1890s. She soon became the nation’s feminine ideal and earned a place in history. Robert Ripley published his first cartoon in Life in 1908 and Norman Rockwell’s first cover for Life was published in 1917. Dr. Seuss submitted cartoons in the late 1920s.

After World War I, the publishing world changed, encompassing a cruder and more cynical outlook. Life’s clean fun format caused it to struggle to compete. Even though they managed to hire the most talented authors, artists, and editorial staff, the magazine continued to lose popularity. The New Yorker, publishing its first issue in 1925, copied much of the best of Life’s style and format, and wooed away much of its editorial and art staff. Though its staff tried hard to keep current, it fought to make a profit in the 1930s. Henry Luce purchased Life in 1936 for its name only.

With Images From Life, we wanted to share some of the legendary art and artists with the SCAD community. Some of the artists are well known, some are not so well known. We also wanted to share some of the advertisements in Life. They are very informative of the time period. If you want to find the collection directly, we will add a link soon, but for now, use the link on the Library’s catalog page for the Don Bluth Collection of Animation. When you get to the Bluth Collection, click on the home option at the top and this will bring you to all of the collections. Just select the Images From Life icon with the cherub. This is a fascinating look at advertising and cartooning history, and we hope you will enjoy looking at is as much as we enjoyed bringing the project to you. We have barely touched the surface of the materials that are available from Life, and are going to continue to add new images as time permits!

Life, volume 60, number 1559, page 1768, 8/22/1912.

Around the same time, he started his cartoon strip, the Explorigator. It featured fantastic aircraft with a crew of kids lead by Admiral Fudge. They set out to explore the moon and find the Man in the Moon, moonbeams, a Mood Lady, and Catamarinktum Cave populated by Moon cats. There are even tame watermelons that can be ridden. The strip only ran for 14 weeks in 1908. The strips are available online from Barnacle Press but these are in black and white. To see these amazing comic strips in color, come to Special Collections to see Forgotten fantasy, Sunday comics 1900-1915: visions from Lyonel Feininger, Winsor McCay and many more! edited by Peter Maresca, published in 2011, call number PN6726 .F37 2011.

Life, volume 59, number 1542, page 1020, 5/16/1912

Dart went on to become a very prolific cartoonist for Life and Judge during the 1920s. He is best known for his futuristic and aviation-oriented cartoons and comic strips. He was very egalitarian and often put women at the helm of his complicated flying machines. He is also known for his detailed cartoons with futuristic speculations. He predicted the press covering sporting events in blimps above the stadium in a 1912 cartoon for Life (see cartoon below). The first baseball game covered by radio was not until 1921. He used a robotic servant in a cartoon from 1911 from Life. He often used an ensemble cast of thousands in a montage of scenarios and locations to illustrate his point. Dart died in New Hampshire in 1938.

Life, volume 60, number 1565, page 2047, 10/24/1912

We have a number of Dart’s work in Life and we are scanning some of the highlights in our new digital project, the Images from Life. Stay tuned for information on this project!