Exhibit runs through April 17.

The Artists Help Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Fund was founded by Dice Tsutsumi, an art director at Pixar Animation Studios. Dice was also behind the 2008 Totoro Forest Project to help preserve Sayama Forest in Japan.

If you’re not in the Pittsburgh are, you can still donate to the Artists Help Japan.

To fund the catalog, the museum is raising money through Kickstarter. It hopes to raise $3,000 and has added various incentives to donate.

$5 – Receive the official exhibition postcard for From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed!

$25 – Receive a copy of From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed!

$40 – Receive a copy of From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed with a bookplate signed by Berkeley Breathed!

$50+ – For supporters outside of the United States! Receive a copy of From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed with a bookplate signed by Berkeley Breathed!

$65+ – Receive a copy of From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed with a bookplate signed by Berkeley Breathed, plus a one-year Individual Membership to San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum!

$80 – Receive a copy of From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed with a bookplate signed by Berkeley Breathed, plus a one-year Family Membership to San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum!

$125+ – Receive a copy of From Bloom County to Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed with a bookplate signed by Berkeley Breathed, plus a one-year Friend Membership to San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum!

The catalog will also feature essays by Bill Amend, creator of FoxTrot; Keith Knight, creator of The K Chronicles; Amy Lago, Comics Editor of the Washington Post Writers Group and Cartoon Art Museum Curator Andrew Farago. Also a lengthy interview with Breathed conducted by cartoonist and author Shaenon K. Garrity

Here’s more of the details:

Professional cartoonist Joe Wos will host an adult-beginners’ program modeled specifically for couples, encouraging collaborative fun and imagination in a laid back atmosphere. To help set the mood, CBW will be on hand to pour some of their favorite beers.

“Our collaborations with the Church Brew Works were some of our favorite events of last year,” said John Mattie, the ToonSeum’s manager and coordinator of the Toons and Brews events. “We were eager to work with them again and thought that it would be fun to offer a unique “date event.”

Cost per couple is $50 (ToonSeum members are $45), tasting, lesson and snacks included. Participating couples are eligible for door prizes. Reservations are required and can be made at www.toonlove.eventbrite.com or at the ToonSeum Gallery on Liberty Avenue. Space is very limited, however if demand exceeds expectations, a second event may be added.

If you attend, just remember never to let your friends or family ink and drive.

“The right of artists to use the pieces of their society in their art is being significantly curtailed, both legally, but also there’s a huge chilling effect,” he said. “Most artists don’t have lawyers, and even if a piece they want to use might be considered fair use, a lot of people are pulling away from it because they don’t know if it’s fair use.”

Artwork includes the famous tri-color Barak Obama “Hope” icon that now says, “Maybe, we could’ve” and an enlarged copy of a Mary Worth panel that has been altered until it resembles a Roy Lichtenstein comic strip painting.

Here’s a video on the history of Appropriation:

Appropriation Edit 4 Current Version from imandeep on Vimeo.

See the Charles M. Schulz Museum website for more info.

The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation has pledged $250,000 over five years to support the new Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum facility, part of the Sullivant Hall renovation at The Ohio State University. In recognition of this gift, the library’s seminar room will be named in honor of Will Eisner. The Eisner Family Foundation gift will be matched dollar for dollar by Jean Schulz, widow of Peanuts’ creator Charles M. Schulz, giving it a $500,000 impact on the project. Ms. Schulz has promised to match donations to the new facility up to $2.5 million.

Creator of The Spirit, Will Eisner (1917-2005) is noted as the father of the graphic novel for his ground-breaking book, A Contract with God. He was also an early and influential analyst of sequential graphic narrative with his book Comics and Sequential Art. In addition to his eight decade career as a cartoonist, Eisner taught for many years at the School of Visual Arts.

“We are very grateful for the support of the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation. Their generous gift brings us much closer to meeting the total Schulz Challenge of $2.5 million,” said Lucy Shelton Caswell, professor and curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. “It is particularly appropriate to name the seminar room in honor of Will Eisner because he was a gifted teacher who genuinely cared about his students.”

The Sullivant Hall renovation is estimated to cost $24.4 million and is scheduled to be completed in 2013, at which time Sullivant Hall will house the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum as well as The Ohio State University Department of Dance and the Department of Art Education. Upon completion of the Schulz Challenge, the Sullivant Hall renovation will be completely funded.

If you haven’t donated, please do.

Diedrichs added, “I congratulate Lucy on her extra-ordinary career as the founding curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, one of the highlights of OSU and the most prominent collection of its kind in the world.   All of us are confident that it will continue to flourish under the leadership of Jenny Robb and with the assistance of Lucy Caswell.”

H/T: Mike Lynch