Long Island Museum, Sunday, October 21: Cartoon Talk

I was teaching some cartoon classes at the Long Island Museum this summer. I've been doing that for about six years now. Great kids. Great people. Anyway, someone at the Museum asked if I would give this talk on Comics and the 1950s Suburbs. The Museum was going to do an exhibit of 1950s suburbs. I said, sure, that sounds good and fun and, like I said, these are really great people.

So, on the drive home, I'm muttering to myself, What have I gotten into?

I usually sit alone in a room and draw. Even writing the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog is a solitary affair.

And what do I know about the suburbs?

Then it dawned on me that that the great migration to the suburbs was all about families and decency and morality ...

... All those things that comics and cartoons love to make fun of.

And that can rub people the wrong way. And that, as you may know, would lead to the national anti-comics crusade of the 1950s.

A bad time for comic books. It gutted the industry.

Conversely, it was the golden age for gag cartoonists, with gag cartoons in many magazines.

So, it'll be a fun chat this Sunday at 2pm. The talk is free with Museum admission.

And it gets me out of the house.