As I've mentioned here many a time, my partner Sergio Aragonés is currently being celebrated with an exhibit of his artistry at the Ojai Valley Museum in Ojai, California. The show is up 'til October 4 so if you're thinking of going, don't dawdle.
Carolyn and I drove up last evening for a special showing and party and barbecue for Sergio's friends in the cartooning world — a function of CAPS, the Comic Art Professional Society, which was founded in 1977 by writer Don Rico, Sergio and me. Among the CAPS members present were Scott Shaw!, Stan Sakai, Floyd Norman, Matt Groening, Mell Lazarus, Cathy Guisewite, Bill Morrison, Chad Frye, Bob Foster, Mike Kazaleh, Dean Yeagle, Steve Greenberg, Bobby London, Bill Riling, David Folkman, Pat McGreal, Nat Gertler and why did I start this list, knowing full well someone will be pissed at me for being left off it?
The exhibit is great fun. The walls are lined with Sergio drawings, a few of which date back to his childhood. At least one cartoonist, upon viewing drawings done at age eight, remarked, "Finally! A Sergio drawing I think I can do better than!" Most of the pages are of more recent vintage…from MAD or Groo, mainly. Then in one corner of the hall, Sergio has erected a facsimile of his studio, complete with a life-size cut-out of the man. That's what you're looking at in the photo above. The photo below is Carolyn examining a display of Groo posters.
One of the highlights of the exhibit is that the Ojai Valley Museum was nice enough to let Sergio draw all over their walls. He actually drew marginal-style cartoons (i.e., like the marginals he does for MAD) along the baseboards and in any blank wall space he could find. Among attendees, there was much discussion of how sad it will be if and when the museum paints over them all and brings in French impressionists. Here's one such doodle that I noticed on my way to Guess Where after the long drive…
I shot some others I may post later in the week. But if you're within easy driving range of Ojai, try to get to this thing before it closes. You won't have as good a time as we did because there'll be no barbecue and there probably won't be a room full of cartoonists. But you'll have a good enough time to make the drive worth it.