The Refurbished Richmond Gallery

This past weekend I traveled to Des Moines, IA, to meet up with my fellow members of the National Cartoonist Society North Central Chapter to judge out division for the annual NCS awards (we did Greeting Cards this year). While there we got to hang out in freelance cartoonist/illustrator Buck Jones and his wife Kim‘s house for a little welcome party. Besides the great food, drink and company, the best part was getting to pour over Buck’s great collection of original artwork by dozens of well known cartoonists. You can check out some pics on the NCC blog. Knowing I had quite a few originals myself that needed framing and hanging, I was jealous of how great these looked on the walls in and around Buck’s studio.

After 23 years of marriage, The Lovely Anna has developed a well-tuned psychic connection with me. Somehow, from Buck’s basement in Des Moines, she picked up my thoughts on this subject. Completely unsolicited by me (at least verbally), she spent a few hours the other day framing up much of the original artwork I have been collecting over the years, and rehung several already framed pieces on the wall outside my studio door. I’d call it “The MADropolitan Museum of Art”, but that’s been taken.

Here are some pics, and some closeups of a few of the originals:

Clicky to Embiggen…

This is a prize. A Family Circus Sunday original, signed by both Jeff Keane and the late Bil.

I traded a lame drawing of Pixar story artist Josh Cooley as Alfred E. Neuman (or maybe it was Alfred as Josh?) for this beauty. Sucker.

Chris Browne and his wife Caroll are some of the most delightful people you would ever want to meet. I got this Hagar the Horrible Sunday original from them after they had won a couple of my MAD pages in our chapter’s annual(ish) raffle.

This obviously isn’t an original, but the brilliant Garry Trudeau donated some of these Doonesbury thirtieth anniversary to the NCS, and we got one signed.

One of the benefits of being president of the NCS is that The Lockhorns artist John Reiner does an official caricature of you. John is a tremendously talented and versatile artist and a GREAT caricaturist. You can see many of his caricatures of past NCS presidents here.

I traded another lame drawing of Alfred for this Ask Shagg! original by creator and The Cartoonists Studio founder Peter Guren. HA!… Another sucker!

The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee! creator John Hambrock sent this to me out-of-the-blue, correctly equating the value of a trade of mine as the same as nothing (John’s a smart guy). However he for some reason still wants something, so now he’s going to end up getting what he asks for… he should have left well enough alone.

Stephan Pastis sent me this Pearls Before Swine original also out-of-the-blue… but I think it was in an effort to buy my vote for him for NCS “Cartoonist of the Year”. It worked.

Got this beauty via a silent auction at the MAD, MAD, SCAD Weekend last November. Paul Coker! One of my favorites.

This from the same weekend in Savannah. Anna made me sign it also 🙄

I have several other originals that still need framing and adding to the gallery. Some needed odd frames or mattes to work, so plenty more to add. Nice to have a little inspiration on my way into the studio every day.