The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee: September 2010

Toonfest 2010: Disney Museum and One Fine Sunday

The Disney Museum

A car from the autopia ride that was brought from Disneyland to Marceline

A picture of the ride

The museum is the old train depot

A telegraph complete with Morse Code chart

A relative of Samuel F.B. Morse tries his hand at code (Samuel's Grandfather was my 11 greats Grandfather so I thought this was pretty cool!)

Getting the tour from Kaye Malins

A miniature for the teacup ride

Train spotting

Here comes one!!

The One Fine Sunday in The Funnies Exhibit (there's Edison)

More of the exhibit including the recent stamps issued featuring cartoon characters

The stamps: Beetle Bailey, Calvin and Hobbes, Archie, Garfield, and Dennis the Menace. (You'll notice each of the creators signed the print with the exception of one.........)

This is the second stop of this wonderful exhibit (which may never again be hung on chicken wire - I loved the airy feeling it gave the work - no lie) put together by the publisher of Stay Tooned magazine - John Read. I hope to have a complete list of the tour of this monumental show of original cartoon art at "Spot The Cartoonist".

New Feature on the Blog UPDATED

We interrupt the week of Toonfest coverage to bring you the following message: (skip down below if you are looking for the Toonfest stuff)

Today I made a decision to start a new feature here on the blog.

"Spot The Cartoonist" will be a place to find out where you can go to meet or hear a presentation by your favorite cartoonists.

For instance, if you lived anywhere within driving distance of Hamilton Ontario last weekend you could have attended presentations by Sandra Bell Lundy, Paul Gilligan, John Martz, Mike Cope and Leif Peng.

Likewise, if you were anywhere close to Marceline Missouri last weekend, you could have attended presentations (for free BTW) by Stan Goldberg, Guy Gilchrist, Marcus Hamilton, John Hambrock.

Monday September 20th found Dave Coverly in Wisconsin Rapids where, along with doing some school presentations, he attended a reception in is honor and a book signing - both of which were open to the public.

This weekend the North Central Chapter of the National Cartoonist Society will be having their fall meeting in Omaha Nebraska. While much of the weekend will involve presentations to pre-selected schools and chapter members only, Saturday boasts a very full roster of events open to the public (scroll down the schedule until you see "Public Events"), including presentations by Josh Cooley of Pixar and two of the chapter members who have done the USO thing and visited the troops (I'm assuming one of those is Tom Richmond) a book signing and the opportunity to see John Read's excellent travelling exhibit of comic strip originals "One Fine Sunday In the Funny Pages."

And, of course, there is the Festival of Cartoon Art in Columbus Ohio in about three weeks (October 14-17) which will not only boast the chance to rub elbows with probably 75% of the members of the NCS as they wander around the OSU campus (and probably all the area bars and taverns as well) but a couple of events open to the public, the chance to buy a lot of folks book collections, (The new Edison collection might be one of them - working on it) and another chance to see the One Fine Sunday Exhibit.

Those are just a couple of things coming up off the top of my head- I'll be putting something a little more formal as I start to get info from folks.

I decided to start this feature as a sort of "one stop shopping" zone because I feel that the public loves to meet cartoonists and buy their books or whatnot (and cartoonists really like meeting and supporting each other as well - I've truly never met such a collegial profession) and announcements on facebook and twitter get buried so quickly in the timeline. So, once I work the bugs out - give me a week or two because I'll be running around Omaha and Columbus and also collecting schedules from people, this should be a feature with it's own permanent page and archive that you can access anytime.

UPDATE: Here is a link to what I have so far. I have to go to work but will hopefully have a permanent button on the sidebar by tonight.

http://overbookedandunderpaid.typepad.com/spot_the_cartoonist/

Toonfest 2010: Plaque and Planteer Ceremonies

There are two ceremonies at Toonfest. The first happens after the parade when each of the honored guests are presented with a plaque which holds a small piece of Walt Disney's "dreaming tree". A large cottonwood, this is the tree under which, as a child, Disney would sit with his younger sister Ruth and daydream. Since Walt made his fortune turning those daydreams into entertainment for the world, his place of inspiration holds a special significance.

Each plaque has a photo of Walt and his brother Roy at the dreaming tree holding a piece of the bark as well as an actual piece of the tree and some words of appreciation.

Past and present honored guests of Toonfest. From left to right: Dr. Robin Allan, Guy Gilchrist, Stan Goldberg, John Hambrock, Marcus Hamilton, Shirley Schmidt, Paul Fell, Albert Schmidt, Mike Edholm, Tom Thornton, and Ken Alvine.

Dr. Robin Allan author of "Walt Disney and Europe"

John Hambrock of The Brilliant Mind Of Edison Lee

John Read - publisher of Stay Tooned and Curator of "One Fine Sunday in The Funny Pages".

Guy Gilchrest of Today's Dogg and Nancy

Marcus Hamilton of Dennis The Menace

Stan Goldberg of Archie Comics

"Marcus the Menace"

I don't know who said what but it must have been hilarious!

Later that night there was another ceremony at the dreaming tree. There were some speeches, including one by "Young Walt" (Colby Sims) and "Young Ruth"(Sarah Kussman).

Each guest was inducted into the "order of planteers" complete with hard hat fitted with Mickey Mouse ears.

They were then escorted down to an arboretum where they each planted a tree in honor of the dreaming tree.

Cindy Thornton played the pipes for the occasion.

Planting the tree (a willow) with a little help from daughter Kate.

Finally, it was time to sign Walt's barn. The original barn has not survived but a replica has been built in it's place. It is supposed to be a place, like the dreaming tree, for reflection and inspiration.

John signing the barn.

Kate is now also officially a "planteer"

There was one more signing ceremony the next day. Debbie Foster has a room in the Uptown with a wall devoted to the famous cartoonists who have stayed there.

John signs the wall.

It's a little hard to see but some of the other signatures on the wall are: Jim Borgman (Zits) Pete Doctor (Monster's Inc), Chris Browne (Hagar the Horrible) Jay Jackson (Little Mermaid) Michael Jantze (The Norm) Tom Wilson (Ziggy) and Tom Baxter (Figment)

As Kris is hoping to work at pixar someday, he thought he'd try tracing some pixar characters. (Settle down - he didn't really!)

Marcus Hamilton's contribution from this weekend.

Another wall - here we have: Jan Eliot (Stone Soup) Dan Piraro (Bizarro) and Greg Evens (Luann) (My apologies to the others - I can't read them and I can't remember them!)