“Perhaps it is the climate, and then again, perhaps it is the illustrious example of the late Homer Davenport, but climate or whatever, the soil of Oregon seems to be prolific of cartoonists.”

The Oregonian, in 1914.

1. Homer Calvin Davenport (1867 – 1912) was the son of a well educated, politically progressive Oregon Trail pioneer. Brought up on a farm in Silverton, Homer became, after a series of vocational false starts, the most highly paid newspaper cartoonist in the world. His political cartoons, drawn for Hearst newspapers, were so influential legislation was introduced in New York State to outlaw them. As one of the country’s first media superstars, Homer Davenport was wealthy, powerful, well connected, and homesick. He dreamed of leaving New Jersey to return to Oregon, but his wife would not hear of it. Born in the Waldo Hills. Self taught.

2. Carl Barks (1901 – 2000) was the creator of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, and the writer-artist auteur behind Disney’s Duckville comic books. Revered for his story sense and superior draftsmanship, he has been claimed as an inspiration by figures as diverse as R. Crumb and Steven Spielberg. Barks was chosen as one of three figures to inaugurate the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall Of Fame in 1987.  Born and raised on an isolated ranch in Merrill. Self taught.

3. Basil Wolverton (1909 – 1978) was the first Pacific Northwest cartoonist to conduct his entire career by mail, without leaving the Portland area. Enormously influential, his innovative “spaghetti and meatballs” style challenged the boundaries of good taste and changed the face of American comics. Robert Crumb’s recently published Book Of Genesis is a tribute to Wolverton, while Jerry De Fuccio of Mad Magazine thought the comics industry version of the Oscar should be called “The Basil”.  Born in Central Point. Self taught.

4. Born in Oregon City in 1946, Bill Plympton worked as an illustrator and syndicated cartoonist in New York for 15 years before switching to animation. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Variety, Rolling Stone, Glamour and National Lampoon. Bill Plympton is the only filmmaker alive who hand draws feature length films. He has drawn six of them, and is a two time Oscar nominee. Matt Groening, for one, believes “Bill Plympton is God”.

5. Born in Portland in 1951, John Callahan began cartooning in the late 70‘s, after a car accident confined him to a wheelchair. He brought a portfolio of cartoons to a PSU class taught by Bill Plympton, and the rest is history. His syndicated cartoons appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Daily News, The London Observer, the Los Angles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Harpers, the Utne Reader, Willamette Week and 50 other publications. Two animated television series, Quads and Pelswick, were based on his work. He died in 2010, of complications related to his quadriplegia.

6. Born in Portland in 1954, Matt Groening is the creative force behind  the longest running scripted show in television history. The Simpsons has won 27 Emmy Awards, 30 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. He is the third Oregonian to have a star on Hollywood Boulevard, after Jane Powell and Mel Blanc. Throughout all this, Groening has remained active as a cartoonist, publishing his syndicated strip, Life In Hell, every week since 1977. He cheerfully admits “Cartooning is for people who can’t quite draw and can’t quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career.”

7. Born in Portland in 1959, David Chelsea was selling cartoons before he was in high school. His work appears in hundreds of publications including the New York Times (where he illustrated the Modern Love column), The Wall Street Journal, The New York Press, Seattle Weekly, Chicago Tribune, Reader’s Digest, Boston Phoenix and Portland Monthly. For years, the New York Observer carried David’s celebrity caricatures on the front page.

8. Born in 1960 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Jack Ohman moved to Portland in 1983 to begin working as a cartoonist for The Oregonian. His cartoons appear in hundreds of newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, and The Baltimore Sun. He is the author of ten books, and winner of numerous awards, including the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the 2010 Society of Professional Journalists Award and the 2012 Scripps Howard Journalism Award.

9. Born in Malta in 1960, Joe Sacco moved with his family to Beaverton in time to attend Sunset High School. Graduating with a journalism degree from University of Oregon, he found his true calling when he began using the comic strip format to cover the war in Palestine. Internationally renowned, he is the winner of the 1996 American Book Award, 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2001 Eisner Award.

10. Two emerging Oregon cartoonists share the #10 spot.

Shannon Wheeler moved to Portland in 2010. You’ve seen his cartoons in the New Yorker.

Matt Bors received the 2012 Herblock Prize, the first alternative editorial cartoonist to win that honor.

Learn more about Homer Davenport, the first in this illustrious string of Oregon cartooning geniuses, in this month’s issue of the magazine 1859. Or attend your choice of three Homer Davenport events taking place in Portland this month:

Saturday, April 21, 2:35 – 3:45 PM
“Occupy Davenport: Cartoons for the 99%”, panel at Bus Project’s Rebooting Democracy @ Backspace Cafe

Tuesday, April 24,  7:30 PM @ Jack London Bar
“Stumptown Stories: Homer Davenport Covers Dempsey vs Fitzsimmons Prizefight” Speakers: Gus Frederick & Gordon Munro

Saturday, April 28, 11:00 – 11:45 AM
Homer Davenport Presentation & Panel Discussion @ Stumptown Comics Fest

All three events are the brainchildren of Gus Frederick, lead organizer of the Davenport Project. Frederick was inspired by last summer’s Mel Blanc Project, a series of public history/arts education events presented by  Oregon Cartoon Institute.

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This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute, a colloquium of individuals and organizations interested in raising awareness of Oregon’s rich animation and cartooning history.

Basil Wolverton displays his pioneering “spaghetti and meatballs” approach to human anatomy.

As Oregon Cartoon Institute heads into its fourth year, I sat down to retrace the steps that led to its creation.

This timeline of development was originally written for Jill Hartz, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Thank you, Jill, for providing me with the impetus to pull this together!

1990’s in New York

As I fly back and forth between Portland and New York, I begin noticing the way Oregon press underplays the fame of Oregon’s most well received artists (Chuck Palahniuk a great example ) while at the same time New York press omits the Oregon citizenship of an artist all together. I begin to understand the way this has created a misperception that Oregon does not produce artists.

At about this same time Columbia sportswear begins showing up on the subways. The Simpsons are becoming a cultural mainstay. Elliott Smith, the Dandy Warhols, Courtney Love, Gus Van Sant — I start to feel  surrounded by Portland even when I am 3,000 miles away.

1999 visiting Portland

David Chelsea tells me about Basil Wolverton.

I knew about Homer Davenport, the Hearst newspaper cartoonist from Silverton.

I’d heard about Mel Blanc, Portland’s most reknowned voice artist.

But I am stupefied by Wolverton. How could a guy from Central Point (pop: 12,000)  influence an entire generation of  Americans? And do it via Mad Magazine ?

A seed starts to sprout in my mind.

2001, in Portland

Dennis Nyback and I teach an avant garde film survey course at Northwest Film Center. Preparing for it, I discover avant garde animator Harry Smith was born in Portland.

Smith was both the disciplined, insightful, completely original collector behind Folkways’ enormously influential Anthology of American Folk Music and a self taught, extravagantly experimental, completely original filmmaker. I never dreamt he had anything to do with Oregon.

In my previous understanding, Oregon rarely produced nationally known artists.

Now with Harry “High Brow” Smith and Basil “Low Brow” Wolverton in the picture, I am completely confused.

2003 in New York

Standing in Kim’s Video, I stumble across a footnote in a book about Robert Crumb which identifies Carl Barks, creator of the comic books which were a huge influence on Crumb, as being from Merrill, Oregon.

I turn the book over to see who wrote it — D. K. Holm, from Portland.

At this point I compile a list of living and dead Oregon cartoonists and animators and send it to John Canemaker, asking what he thinks. He calls me, excited and impressed.

He adds two new names.

He tells me Marc Davis, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, graduated from high school in Klamath Falls

and that Pinto Colvig, an early animator turned voice artist, is from Jacksonville.

2006 in Portland

Dennis and I interview Portland cartoonist  John Callahan for The Portland That Was.

Callahan is surprised to learn that Mel Blanc, a life long hero, is from his own home town. Our intern, a graduate of Lincoln High School, the school Blanc attended, tells us she never heard of him.

About this time, graphic journalist  Joe Sacco returns home to live in Portland, bringing with him his 1996 American Book Award.

Dennis and I return home too.

2007 in Portland

We hold the first Oregon Cartoon Institute public event, a three week screening series at Disjecta of 16mm animation from Dennis’ collection. Jim Blashfield and Rose Bond come and speak. Both have conducted far ranging film careers from Portland.

Blashfield made his acclaimed music videos here, and Bond her monumentally scaled installations. Both use animation.

Our model for engaging audiences emerges  — we will use living artists as interpreters as we raise awareness about the dead ones. Chel White, Bill Plympton, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Marilyn Zornado and Will Vinton loan us 35mm prints for the final night of the Disjecta series, which takes place at the Hollywood Theater.

Second Oregon Cartoon Institute event: Dennis conducts video interviews with visiting and local artists at the Platform International Animation Festival. We put these online.

At this point, I thought we had found all the historic Oregon animation and cartooning figures there were to find.

I was wrong.

In the course of researching Oregon film history for the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival, I stumble across George Bruns, a four time Oscar nominee for animated film scores, from Sandy

and Dennis stumbles across Ralph Wright, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1957. He’s from Grants Pass.

2009 in Portland

Third Oregon Cartoon Institute event: we co-sponsored Bill Plympton Day at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival at Marylhurst.

Bill is as fascinated with this history as we are.

Not all our research comes from history books. Some comes from the news. Just when we weren’t looking,  Brad Bird received first one, then two Oscars.

Looking ahead:

An interview about Oregon Cartoon Institute’s next public event, which will take place in 2011, can be found online at  KBOO.fm. Conducted by S. W. Conser as part of his Words & Pictures series, this interview introduces our first artist in residence, Heather Perkins.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is all about partnerships. As soon as the details get finalized, we will announce our upcoming partnerships with others who share our goal of raising public awareness of  this state’s rich animation and cartooning history.