I made a free mini-zine for the Santa Rosa Zine Fest this past weekend at the Northwest branch in Santa Rosa, California. This post basically includes all the contents of the zine for you. I gave them away when anyone asked about swaps, or if we just visited, or I bought a zine from them. The selection of comic panels are what I used for interior pages, and if you unfolded the whole thing, you’d see the full-color Sunday strip, like a mini poster. I had a blast seeing everyone, enjoying a little sunshine, and swapping with everyone, too.
A few favorite panels from F. Opper’s Maud the Mirthful Mule, from 1907. Frederick Burr Opper created an entire Opper-verse on newspaper comics pages in the early 20th Century. Different strips with characters as popular then as any pop culture favorite today, like Happy Hooligan, Alphonse and Gaston, Maud, and more. The dynamic drawing found in his comic strips inspires artists today.
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See below for the full strip for this panel.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
Trina Robbins speaking at the 2023 WonderCon in Anaheim, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia
I did not know Trina Robbins very well, but she has impacted my thinking and my work. She was the kind of person that, after hearing her stories and reading her work, I have a deep appreciation for what she accomplished, and I wish I could have gotten to know her more and talked with her about something we share — a passion for the work of comics history.
I had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of times in the past few years. The first time I met Trina was when I joined her on a panel at FanExpo in San Francisco in November 2022. I remember it as the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and our panel topic was the centennial of the birth of Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. Cartoonist and maze master Joe Wos, who organized the panel, invited Lex Fajardo, the editorial director for Schulz Creative Associates, and me (as curator of the Schulz Museum) to join him and Trina in a wide-ranging discussion of Schulz and his impact on cartooning. Trina was the only one of us to have really known Charles Schulz, bringing not only her stories of meeting Sparky (as he was known to those who knew him) but also her perspective as a Bay Area cartoonist and younger contemporary to him. It was fascinating and, of course, a lot of fun. Few people can tell the story about getting Charles Schulz to contribute a piece to a collection of cartoonists’ nude portraits.
Trina was in high demand that weekend, rushing from panel to table, signings, and other events that day. She joined us a few minutes late and had to leave the panel early for her next commitment, so I didn’t really get a chance to visit with her in that first meeting, though I got to basically sit next to her and hear her tell stories for an hour or so.
I’m so glad I remembered to bring my tape recorder with me, so I at least got audio of the panel—most of it, at least. The brand-new batteries I installed died, and I had to switch to my phone, but something went wrong—don’t try to talk on a panel and record yourself simultaneously if you can help it. At least I got a good chunk of our talk, which is now in the Schulz Museum’s archives.
The next time I saw her was at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023, when we both had books nominated for an Eisner Award in the same category: Best Comics-Related Book. Attending the Eisner Awards is another story, but there’s a little time as people arrive and get settled in to say a few hellos. I saw her and said hello, and wished her good luck. I’m not confident she remembered me or even knew I was one of the other authors in her category, but she was very gracious. I was so overwhelmed just being in the room, so I don’t remember any other details, especially after Nat Gertler and I were announced as winning the category.
Though she was not awarded an Eisner that night (I thought she would win), her book about Gladys Parker is fabulous. Just as all of her historical work is not only well done but groundbreaking and essential reading. Comics is a rich field for study and enjoyment, enriching our lives as readers, thinkers, artists, and whole people. Trina brought that home, especially preserving, sharing, valuing, promoting, and shouting about women in comics from the rooftops.
After meeting Trina, hearing about her work, and finding her books, I looked at my own writing, my own thinking, and my own historical work and asked myself, “Where are the women?” In one project in particular that I’ve been slowly working on for a couple of years, a collection of short historical essays about the working methods of cartoonists, there were very few women initially. Now, it’s better, but there’s always room to improve. Thank you, Trina, for your work, for being wholly you.
“We set our stupidities in dignity when we set them in print.” —Montaigne, 1592
I like Michel de Montaigne — I’ve written about him before. For a guy whose life is pretty drastically different from mine, he made observations from his life that I find eerily applicable to my own. And I’m not the only one. HisEssays have been in print more or less since they were first published in 1580.
Writer-who-draws (and thinker) Austin Kleon shared the quote I copied above (and into my journal) the other day, and I didn’t understand it right away. What does Montaigne mean? The more I think about it, the more it confuses me.
Portrait of Michel de Montaigne, 1570s
Does Montaigne mean that setting our stupidities in print improves them? My stupidities remain pretty stupid no matter what I do with them. Setting them in print sure doesn’t dignify them.
Or does it change the nature of stupidity at all? Is Montaigne saying that printing them merely dignifies them and does not correct them? In fact, whatever dignity is gained, the stupidity is all the worse now that it’s in print? Folly upon folly.
I don’t know.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
This was a nice used bookshop. Good books, a nice selection that was well organized. A little higher priced than some of the other used bookshops in town, but still good stuff. I specifically remember being on the lookout for good niche local, state, and regional history books here. This shop was close to a place I liked to get BBQ — a little shack two brothers ran out of the parking lot of a nearby grocery store. I had gotten to know one of them well in my time in Oklahoma City, so I always called it Crain Bros. BBQ, but I think I was the only one to bother giving their smoke shacks a name. This younger brother, working on a Ph.D. in philosophy, ran this one near 23rd Street and Penn. They had a very nice lady who ran the till for them and packed up the orders inside the grocery store. The other brother ran other smoke shacks with other helpers at a couple of other locations. It was more his empire than the philosophical younger brother’s, who was helping out. The younger brother finished his PhD and is now a philosophy professor in the area.
The smoke shack made a nice stop on a Friday when I felt like I could get away with a little extra long lunch break and could have a little drive. From the Oklahoma Historical Society, where I worked, down 23rd Street, I would grab some sliced brisket and sliced hot link and maybe a bag of chips and a bottle of ice cold Red Diamond iced tea from the grocery store — definitely not the cole slaw from the grocery store’s deli, which tasted like it had been soaked in fishy lake water. It was safer to stick to the pre-packaged stuff.
I took co-workers to the BBQ stand on some Fridays, and being bookminded people, no one would protest if we also made a stop at this bookshop. One of my only distinct memories here was in the parking lot and one of my coworkers describing working with homeless patients with tuburculosis when he was an ambulance driver.
I wish I remembered more about this place, besides the parking on the south side of the building and the hum of the air conditioner that couldn’t keep up with the heat of Oklahoma’s summer workdays. I only vaguely recall the owner of this shop as helpful and alert, which was an anomaly for used booksellers in Oklahoma City in the early 2000s. I wish I had an anecdote of his generosity, kindness, and intelligence, but I don’t. Sadly, the owner was murdered in 2017, and his killer tried to cover his crime by torching his bookshop. I hope the owner’s family has found a measure of peace in time.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
Michael’s Old Books, February 2009, photo by author
This is how I remember it: A sagging roof, peeling paint, cracked windows, maybe a missing pane replaced with a bit of cardboard. But there’s a sign that reads simply: BOOKSTORE. The hardened bibliophile will recognize the urge, this compulsion, to dive into what you are sure is a rodent-infested fire-trap, because, well, you never know. “Anything can be anywhere,” the old saying repeatedly proves. Perhaps it is more the domain of the true bibliomaniac to ignore potential and obvious hazards alike, to shrug away discomforts, and “just stop and look for a minute.” All of us who love books perhaps a little too much understand the impulse.
The proprietor of this establishment had no interest in actually selling anything, though. Michael’s Old Books was a horrid old house converted by someone, I assume, named Michael, but maybe the original Michael was long gone, into a book hoarder stash. If it could broadly be called a book, it was fair inventory for Michael’s. Pamphlets, wrinkled brochures, rain-stained phone books, obsolete test study guides, industrial directories of interest to nearly no one. The truly “old” books were either long gone, or long buried. Here we find merely the out-of-date, out-of-style, out-of-touch. The building was not air-conditioned, which could make visiting on sweltering days completely out of the question. Not as much because of the heat, but because of the smell.
It was also never open. A big, grubby, grouchy man perched on a stool near the back door. My recollections of him are so vague I cannot remember anything more specific, only the memory of his presence. I also vaguely recall an old electric box fan stirring the fetid air inside this building, but that would have meant he had electricity turned on in this place, and I don’t think that’s possible. I have no specific memory of even bookshelves here, but just massive piles everywhere. And the sense that, yes, perhaps it was once a bookshop, or someone many years earlier had started to set it up but gave up.
On one website, I once left this review: “Bring cash. This is a store for those seeking serendipity. Including when it may be open. The owner does not observe the posted hours. Dusty and disorganized. Again, bring cash and dress down. He settles on his opening price by how you’re dressed, how eager you seem, and how much of a nuisance you’ve made yourself.” It reminds me that I stopped there one day after observing some activity — I drove by there almost daily to and from work at the Oklahoma Historical Society. So, I was dressed for the office, and the proprietor had said something about how I was dressed when it came time to negotiate the price — which was always negotiated since none of the merchandise was marked in the customary fashion of used bookshops.
As I wrote about bringing cash, and with the vaguest recollection along those lines, I must have bought something there once, but cannot remember what it could have been. I may have bought some bit of ephemera to donate to the archives at work — something I knew they would need, but was otherwise not that useful to me.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
The book I wrote with Peanuts fan extraordinaire Nat Gertler has been nominated for a Will Eisner Award by the people who bring you Comic-Con International in San Diego each year! Voting has closed for the comics publishing industry award, but it’s been a thrill just to be nominated. I’ve never won an award and tended to roll my eyes at the idea of being grateful for a nomination, but I get it now. This is a recognition of the hard work of *so many* people. I’m so proud and grateful to my team at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, our publishers Weldon-Owen, and all the fans of Charles M. Schulz, who have supported the museum and all do a part in preserving and sharing the legacy of Charles Schulz and Peanuts.
Of course, the book is still available everywhere that good books are sold, and proceeds support the Schulz Museum. You can also buy the book directly from the Schulz Museum, which is a way to support the museum doubly. You can even leave a note when you purchase to request that I sign it, and I’m happy to do that.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
If you’re a fan of newspaper comics and letterpress printing and live in the North Bay Area, you won’t want to miss a special event hosted by the North Bay Letterpress Arts organization on Saturday, April 22nd. The “Sunday Funnies” event will feature a conversation with Benjamin L. Clark (me), Maia Kobabe, and Andrew Mecum, the Executive Director of NBLA, about the relationship between printing, comics, and beyond.
Maia Kobabe, who was once a member of NBLA, is an accomplished author and artist who has created beautiful books. Eir graphic novel, Gender Queer, has been widely banned (boo!), bringing em major media attention, interviews, (and a new book deal).
In addition to the conversation, there will be a short movie about the subject, live printing demonstrations, and fundraising party tricks. All guests will be treated to coffee from Retrograde, tea, donuts, and other fun snacks throughout the event.
This year, the month of May is also a memorial tribute to Dennis Renault, a political cartoonist and letterpress printer who sold Eric Johnson his iron hand press. Unfortunately, Renault passed away last fall. Examples of his work will be on display at the event, showcasing his life and legacy that perfectly embodies the spirit and wit of the “Sunday Funnies” event.
The event will take place at the North Bay Letterpress Arts studio, located at 925-D Gravenstein Hwy S, in Sebastopol, California. Doors will open at 4:00 PM, with the event ending at 6:30 PM. Sliding scale donations will be accepted in person at the event, or you can donate ahead of time online. Be sure to leave a note that it’s for the event or email the organizers.
All proceeds from the event will support the mission of NBLA, which is to democratize letterpress, lower the barrier of entry, and create more access for a wider audience, especially youth in the community. This year, NBLA is generously supported by a grant from the California Arts Council, along with support from local sponsors such as Sonoma County Libraries, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, the Cartoon Art Museum, Blackwing pencils, and Retrograde Coffee.
Join us for an afternoon of fascinating insights into the world of newspaper comics and letterpress printing while supporting a great cause. We hope to see you there!
NB: This post was partially written with ChatGPT tools.
Half Price Books with the new sign going up in OKC, March 2009. Photo by the author
This Texas chain was known to me, but I had never lived in a city to have one. I must have first visited one of these clean, bright stores with the big red signs in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area at some point when I lived in Lubbock and got to the big city for a visit. I was thrilled when HPB announced they would open their first store in Oklahoma City. I don’t think the bookshop owners felt that way, though. This first store was (and still is, I assume), at 63rd and May Ave.
Half Price Books is a very different kind of bookshop. It is mostly used books, but they also carry a sizeable percentage of remainders of otherwise new books from publishers. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, remainders are the printing over-runs, the returns, and the unsold stock publishers always have. Publishing is a highly speculative industry, and publishers often end up with too many books they need to deal with. Bibliophiles dream of having a high-quality, high-turnover shop nearby. They may not have the particular book you need, but they’ll often have something of interest at a decent price. Half Price Books is not the stop to make when looking for a missing link in your collection, though collectible books do show up there.
What else is nice is that Half Price Books staffs a buyer’s counter in their stores to look up books in their database and make an offer. Yes, it’s pennies on the dollar, and no, they don’t put an offer on everything, but they will take everything and dispose of it. Frankly, when you have more books than you know what to do with or no time to deal with, is a lifesaver.
At least, the buy counter was once my life-saver. While living in Oklahoma City (and working for the Oklahoma Historical Society), I went to an auction. It was a strange auction made up of huge lots of old clocks and watches, antique fishing gear, other antique outdoors equipment, and books. Tens of thousands of books, easily. A colleague at OHS alerted me to the sale, knowing my interest in old books. He was mostly going for the fishing and outdoors, but also out of curiosity.
One of my major finds from that auction was featured in the book Rare Books Uncovered by Rebecca Rego Barry, which tells the story of my discovery of a book that had once been part of the Vatican’s library, printed in 1536 in its contemporary binding. Good stuff. Another part of that story is what came with that one little book (seriously, it fits in a pocket) — over a thousand other books. It weighed down my SUV so badly I was worried about the brakes on the drive home. I had a difficult time getting one of the doors to stay latched so I could hit the power locks.
Sorting that load of books into things I wanted to keep, fairly valuable books that needed to be sold via ebay to get a good result, and then a couple of small piles to send to specialists and put aside for friends. After that, there were still hundreds and hundreds of other good used books. These are what I took to Half Price Books. I had no time or storage space to sell all of that myself online. It takes a lot of work to sell books online, even for a single book, to photograph it well, write up a detailed description, answer questions, etc. So, a couple of safer car loads to Half Price Books, and I had enough cash to cover rent that month from book sales, making a sizeable profit over what I had spent at the auction. And I still had special books to sell online and a few lovely things to keep.
Having a buyer at the ready, and able to buy at a scale most local shops cannot and needing enormous amounts of books in stock and keeping it constantly rotating with reasonable prices at their many stores — it seems an excellent addition to a local ecosystem of books and people who love them. I’ve always liked HPB, anyway.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
It’s hard to believe, but I had a book come out on November 1st! You can get it anywhere good books are sold, but if you buy it from the Charles M. Schulz Museum, it will be signed by none other than Jean Schulz!
Working with Jeannie on the book was a very special experience. I get to work with her quite a bit developing exhibitions for the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, and for Snoopy Museum Tokyo, and she’s always happy to pitch in with research — connecting me to contacts, making ID’s in photos, and sharing memories. But this was different. We got to reflect on Sparky as an entire person together and dig into various parts of his life and personality we’ve not done a lot about at the museum for whatever reasons.
The book is almost like a visit to the Schulz Museum — 100 Objects from the museum’s collections are featured in gorgeous detailed photos, and a bit of history is shared about each, often with other supporting images of other objects that help tell the story. We also asked 50 contributors, from cartoonists, celebrities, politicians, friends, and members of the Schulz family, to share their own stories and remembrances related to these objects.
Interior spread from 100 Objects
All of us are very proud of the book, and I hope you will like it, too. It’s out just in time for the holiday gift-giving season, so if you know someone who loves Peanuts (and who doesn’t?), this is something a little different and totally new they will love. If you do buy a copy, be sure to rate and review it wherever you bought it, as it helps other fans find the book. Thank you!
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
Full Circle Books is on the street level of the towering glass building at 50 Penn Place in Oklahoma City. 50 Penn Place is essentially a mall with a high-rise office tower added on top. It was a very high-end place to shop during the oil boom of the 1980s, but I believe there was some connection with a banking scandal not long after it opened. It was still nice in the early 2000s but perhaps no longer carried the clout the address once did. Full Circle is one of the few bookstores for new books I’ve included in this collection of essays. Bookstores dedicated to selling new books can feel cookie-cutter, sadly, without soul. Full Circle is simply better than nearly every other bookshop, including independent bookshops.
Despite, effectively, being in a mall filled with polished tile and dated chrome fixtures, this bookstore has a very charming atmosphere that feels apart. Antique shelves, rolling ladders, lots of wood, other vintage fixtures, worn rugs over hardwood floors, and plenty of comfortable seating. It all adds up to a welcome place in a bibliophile’s heart. The warm fireplaces, a cafe with wicker chairs, and strategically placed air-pots of complimentary house-blend coffee certainly don’t hurt either. At least, that’s how it was when I haunted this bookshop in the early 2000s. I was always sure to bring a travel mug along since everyone was welcome to help themselves and even encouraged to keep drinking their free coffee. It was wonderful.
The staff at Full Circle know their business, too. Professional booksellers who make excellent recommendations and charming selections to stock cannot be overpraised. The newsstand at Full Circle put the nearby Barnes & Noble to shame. Even the stationery selections were impressive. And you could always pick up a copy of the local alt-weekly, for better or worse. The one feature of the store that was already feeling unnecessary by the aughts was a sizeable selection of Lonely Planet and Frommer’s travel guides. A healthy travel section is a thing of beauty, but I would imagine the usefulness of these print guides was already waning by then.
Full Circle has a long history in the Oklahoma City area. I believe it started in Norman, home of the University of Oklahoma in OKC’s southern suburbs, but moved closer to the heart of the city in what was then fairly recent history.
The cafe was home to several regular book clubs, and the location for author visits. One memorable one for me was Ace Atkins, a mystery and thriller writer whose books I enjoyed. There wasn’t exactly a throng of people at his event in 2010, so there was time to make small talk. He asked about my work. I told him I worked for the Historical Society. He was interested in that, signing his book to me, “Keep history alive…” which was nice.
The cafe was also home to the regular meetings of my small writers’ group. By “my,” I mean the one in which I was the youngest, least experienced member. I was starting to write regularly for work, including educational materials and exhibition texts at the Oklahoma History Center, the flagship museum of the Oklahoma Historical Society, but I was just beginning to entertain the idea of writing for myself. The other four generous-hearted people in this group still mean a lot to me today, though I’ve neglected to keep up with everyone. And though it’s been over a decade since we met, I still wish we could.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
