Above: A panel from one of The Cartoon Research Library’s examples of Norman E. Jennett’s The Monkeyshines of Marseleen, from their online Newspaper Cartoon Artists 1898-1909 exhibit. Click the image above to see the exhibit.

I’ve never visited The Cartoon Research Library at Ohio State University, but its existence makes me occasionally dream of living in Ohio. A while back they purchased Bill Blackbeard’s San Francisco Academy of Art collection of old newspaper comics, which is most likely the finest in the world. I keep hoping that one of these days they will start digitizing their collection and putting it all online. They have put some fantastic stuff online, though… here is list of most of their online exhibits:

Lyonel Feininger (Man, I love Feininger…)
The Yellow Kid
Tales of the Jungle Imps (Originals hand colored by Winsor McCay!)
Newspaper Cartoon Artists 1898-1909
Hale Scrapbook
Drawn on Stone
Ohio Cartoonists
The Opper Project
Thomas Nast
The Ohio State University Manga Collection
Preserving Cartoon Art

Pictured above: a panel from The Kin-Der Kids by Lyonel Feininger. Click the above image to visit The Cartoon Research Library’s Lyonel Feininger exhibit. Note that you can purchase a completeish book of Lyonel Feininger’s comic strip work for a pittance, which is decisive proof that we do indeed live in a wondrous world… here is a link for that:

The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger: The Kin-Der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie’s World