The folks at Comics@Columbia are partnering with the Department of Italian to present a celebration of Tex Willer: un cowboy nell’Italia dei doppoguerra. This event, called “The Wild West Through European Eyes,” is being presented by Professor Elizabeth Leake, who will be joined by cartoonist Henrik Rehr and First Second publisher Mark Siegel, to discuss the European fascination with the American West, the cartoonists who have indulged that fascination. The event will take place on October 17, 2018, and can be registered for online.
Comics@Columbia has also announced multiple new acquisitions and donations. In August, they acquired the research archives of Hames Ware, co-editor of the original Who's Who of American Comic Books, and researcher in the history of Golden Age comics publishing. This collection contains all of Ware's histories or the Golden Age publishers, his year-by-year creator lists, and much more.
They have also announced the acquisition of bound sets of Paul Levitz's 1970s fanzines Etcetera and The comic reader, as well as the issues of Amazing world of DC Comics on which he worked, and a few early con programs as well. Paul Levitz has donated close to 1500 volumes to the circulating collection, and is also co-teaching the "American Graphic Novel" course every other year.
They also launched a new collection this summer, the New York Comics Community collection. In an attempt to capture a snapshot of the richly diverse comics community here in the birthplace of American comics, they will be gradually adding individual pieces, ideally accompanied by process materials, from NYC-area creators. They have begun with Emily Flake and Peter Kuper, and are continuing with Lauren Weinstein, Carolita Johnson, and more.
Finally, Columbia has announced the Global Webcomics Web Archive. This project, conceived and overseen by Columbia University and the University of Chicago, as part of the Ivy+ consortium, is an archive of webcomics and cartoonist websites. The archive recognizes the often ephemeral nature of both webcomics and their platforms and will make these materials accessible in perpetuity. The archive seeks to complement the Library of Congress’ Webcomics Web Archive with comics from around the world in many languages. The Global Webcomics Archive encourages recommendations for consideration, and actively seeks nominations from the non-Anglophone world.