All images courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

The breadth of the comic collection in the library's Division of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections includes 10,000 hand-drawn newspaper comic strips and related materials from the 1940s through the 1980s as well as more than 5,000 comic books. The collection contains obscure titles, popular newspaper comics, celebrated comic book heroes and many comics featured in recent movies.

Recent gifts of comic art from two members of Cornell's Class of 1992 have not only brought some laughter into the rare book vault at Cornell University Library but also some primary sources -- comic strips and comic books -- for scholars studying art and culture.

The Newspaper Comic Art Collection, donated by Paul Breitenbach '92, preserves an archive of more than 10,000 originals of newspaper comic strips and related materials from the 1940s through the 1980s. The collection documents the work of such cartoonists as Al Smith, who drew the strips Mutt and Jeff and Cicero's Cat, and Tony DiPreta, best known for taking over the comic strip Joe Palooka from its originator, Ham Fisher.

Not all comics are necessarily funny, though, as illustrated by a gift from Andrew Willet '92, a dedicated collector of comic books -- from classic superhero comics to more obscure underground works -- since the early 1980s, who donated his personal collection of more than 5,000 individual titles to the library.

"Comics as we know them today are an American art form that academia has only recently begun to study; and in order to study the field there must be primary source material for students to examine," Willet said. "Look at the development of the art, of renderings of the human form; look at the changing culture the stories reflect; look at what is being advertised, and to whom and how. I hope that future readers find as many things to enjoy in them as I did -- even if sometimes it's only the thrill of finding out what happens next."

These gifts are a boon to the library's Division of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections, which increasingly documents contemporary culture. The division tries to be creative in speculating on not only what today's scholars need for their work but also what future scholars will want to study so that Cornell University Library will remain a vital center for the study, enjoyment and preservation of our cultural heritage.

Katherine Reagan is the Ernest L. Stern Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts and assistant director for collections in the library's Division of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections.