paper's hero: bill blackbeard

February 20, 2008 1:21 AM

"Bill Blackbeard is a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers. This major collection, consisting of 2.5 million clippings, tearsheets and comic sections, [spans] the years 1894 to 1996...

"Finding that libraries were discarding bound newspapers after microfilming, he established the SFACA in 1968 as a non-profit organization and began collecting newspapers from California libraries, expanding his scope to institutions nationwide. Following three decades of acquisition, accumulating some 75 tons of material, he turned the SFACA Collection over to Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library, where it is available for research.

"It was Blackbeard who told Nicholson Baker about 'fraudulent' studies used by libraries to justify their massive destruction of books and newspapers, information documented by Baker in his book Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (2001), a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner.

text quoted from Blackbeard's wikipedia article..

posted by ethel (3 comments total)

He has also contributed to many of the great recent comics reproductions, and put out the amazing Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics.
posted by ethel at 1:31 AM on February 20

and some interesting talking points on Baker's book/argument.
posted by ethel at 1:40 AM on February 20

Arrrr!

Yay for comics, and the preservation thereof. To Blackbeard!

[lifts grog in a toast]
(not the B.C. character)
posted by not_on_display at 3:56 AM on February 20