The Festival of Cartoon Art was a triennial conference on the art of comics held at Ohio State University from 1983 to 2013. The conference was produced by what is now known as the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

Featuring two to three days of lectures, panel discussions, exhibitions, and receptions, the Festival attracted cartoonists, comics scholars, fans, collectors, and students. Leading cartoonists spoke at the festival, including Lynda Barry, Milton Caniff, Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer, Ben Katchor, Patrick Oliphant, Jeff Smith, Art Spiegelman, Garry Trudeau, and Bill Watterson. Exhibitions were generally shown at what is now known as the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum as well as other venues around Columbus, Ohio.

The inaugural Festival was held on October 14, 1983, and was augmented by three related exhibitions organized by Lucy Shelton Caswell of the school's Library for Communication and Graphic Arts.^[1][2]

In late 1994, Universal Press Syndicate donated $50,000 to underwrite the 1995 Festival of Cartoon Art,^[3] which was dedicated to celebrating the centennial of the American comic strip. The featured exhibition was "See You in the Funny Papers: American Life as Reflected in the Newspaper Comic Strip," curated by Caswell.

The theme of the 2001 festival was "Historic Virtuoso Cartoonists": an exhibit of the same name was shown Aug. 26-Sept. 30 at the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department Cultural Arts Center; and the exhibit "Calvin and Hobbes, Sunday Pages 1985-1995" was shown at OSU's Cartoon Research Library Reading Room Gallery.^[4]

The theme of the 2004 festival was "Deletions, Omissions and Erasures".^[5] The theme of the 2007 festival was "Graphic Storytelling"^[6] — exhibitions associated with the festival celebrated the centennial of Milton Caniff's birth.

The 2010 Festival featured a one-day symposium titled Humor, Play and Identity in Comics: Academic Perspectives. In addition to the usual panels and presentations, Art Spiegelman gave a presentation as part of his residency at OSU's Wexner Center for the Arts. Other events included a tribute to Jay Kennedy, the late editor-in-chief of King Features Syndicate (who had bequeathed his collection of underground comix to OSU's Cartoon Library & Museum); and celebrations of the 100th anniversary of George Herriman's Krazy Kat.^[7]

The final Festival, held mid-November 2013, was titled "Grand Opening Festival of Cartoon Art,"^[8] as it celebrated the opening of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum's new home in the renovated Sullivant Hall.^[9] Exhibitions on view during the festival were "Treasures from the Collections of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum" and "Substance and Shadow: The Art of the Cartoon".^[10]

1983

• "Active cartoonists" (Sept. 26–Nov. 4: Ohio State University Main Library) — Current work by members of the National Cartoonists Society and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
• "Comic art prints" (Oct. 10–Oct. 31: Main Library Gallery, Public Library of Columbus and Franklin County) — Set of 20 limited-edition prints owned by the OSU Library for Communication and Graphic Arts
• "Historic cartoons" (Oct. 13–Nov. 4: Hoyt Sherman Gallery, Sullivant Hall) — Historic cartoons from the collections of Phillip Sills and Frank Pauer, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Ohio Historical Society^[1]

1986^[24][25]

• "Cartoons Then" (Sept. 29–Oct. 26: Hoyt L. Sherman Gallery, University Gallery of Fine Art, Sullivant Hall) — Historic collections from the Art Wood Collection
• "Side by Side" (Oct. 1–Oct. 31: Main Library Gallery, Public Library of Columbus and Franklin County) — Original cartoons and film advertising materials from OSU's Library for Communication and Graphics Arts and the Ohio Historical Society
• "Cartoons Now" (Oct. 6—Nov. 21: Main Library Skylight Exhibit Hall) — Work by members of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Cartoonists Association, and the National Cartoonists Society

1989^[26]

• "Great American Comics — 100 Years of American Cartoon Art" (Oct. 15–Nov. 26: Columbus Recreation and Parks Department's Cultural Arts Center) — Focusing on comics as a graphic narrative; Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service show opens its two-year national tour
• "Women Practitioners of 'The Ungentlemanly Art'" (Oct. 16–Nov. 30: Philip Sills exhibit Hall, OSU Main Library) — The work of seven women political cartoonists: Linda Boileau, Edwina Dumm, Etta Hulme, M.G. Lord, Lillian Mesner, Kate Palmer, and Signe Wilkinson

1992^[27]

• "Political Satire by Oliver Harrington" (Sept. 13–Nov. 7: Martin Luther King Jr. Complex for Performing and Cultural Arts) — Examples of Harrington's comic strip character Bootsie, as well as his magazine cartoons
• "'Illusions: Ethnicity in American Cartoon Art" (Oct. 26–Dec. 11: OSU Main Library, Philip Sills Exhibition Hall) — Examination of racial and ethnic stereotypes in cartoons from the past 150 years

1995^[28]

• "Anything Can Happen in a Comic Strip: Centennial Reflections on an American Art Form" (July 30–Aug. 27: Columbus Recreation and Parks Department Cultural Arts Center)^[29]
• "The Face Behind the Laugh: Cartoonists' Self-Caricatures from the Collections of Mark J. Cohen" (July 30-Aug. 27: Columbus Recreation and Parks Department Cultural Arts Center)^[30] — Originally shown at the Cartoon Art Museum (San Francisco) Nov. 25, 1988–Mar. 4, 1989
• "See You in the Funny Papers: American Life as Reflected in the Newspaper Comic Strip" (Aug. 1–Oct. 27: Cartoon, Graphic, and Photographic Arts Research Library — Curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell^[31]
• "Sequential Art: The Next Step" (Aug. 24–Oct. 14: Martin Luther King Jr. Complex for Performing and Cultural Arts) — The work of young, mostly African American, cartoonists Darrell Gates, Grey, Hannibal King, Louis Small, Jr., Jeff Smith, and Robert Stull; curated by Stull. Later traveled to the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston; the Words & Pictures Museum in Northampton, MA; the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte, NC; and the Tubman Museum in Macon, GA.^[32]

1998

• "The Genius of Winsor McCay" (Sept. 21-Dec. 30: Cartoon Research Library Reading Room Gallery)
• "Humor in a Jugular Vein: An Expanded Exhibition of the Art, Artists, and Artifacts of MAD Magazine from the Collection of Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel" (Oct. 1–Nov. 13: Columbus College of Art and Design Joseph V. Canzani Center)

2001

• "Historic Virtuoso Cartoonists" (Aug. 26-Sept. 30: Columbus Recreation and Parks Department Cultural Arts Center) — Curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell; featuring Thomas Nast, Joseph Keppler, Frederick Burr Opper, Richard Felton Outcault, Winsor McCay, Nell Brinkley, George Herriman, Edwina Dumm, Rube Goldberg, Milton Caniff, Walt Kelly, Charles M. Schulz, Willard Mullin, James Thurber, Oliver Harrington, Art Young, Jay Norwood Darling, Rollin Kirby, and Jeff MacNelly^[33]
• "Calvin and Hobbes, Sunday Pages 1985-1995" (Sept. 10, 2001–Jan. 15, 2002: Cartoon Research Library Reading Room Gallery) — The work of Bill Watterson

2004

• "Gillray's Legacy" (Sept. 15–Dec. 10: Philip Sills Gallery, William Oxley Thompson Library) — Curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell; the art of James Gillray^[34]
• "Drawing Fire: Controversial Comics by Milton Caniff" (Oct. 1, 2004–Jan. 14, 2005: Cartoon Research Library reading room gallery)

2007

• "Rarities: Unusual Works from the Caniff Collection" (Sept. 4, 2007–Jan. 19, 2008: Cartoon Research Library)
• "Spotlight on Milton Caniff" (Oct. 23, 2007–Mar. 23, 2008: Ohio Historical Society)

2010^[7]

• "Ireland of the Dispatch" (Sept. 7, 2010–Jan 2, 2011: Thompson Library Gallery) — Billy Ireland work for The Columbus Dispatch
• "Scenes of My Infint-hood: Celebrating the Birth of Krazy Kat" (Sept. 7–Dec. 31: Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Reading Room Gallery) — The work of George Herriman
• "The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb's Book of Genesis" (Oct. 8, 2010–Jan. 6, 2011: Columbus Museum of Art) — Work from Robert Crumb's The Book of Genesis adaptation^[35]

2013^[10]

• "Treasures from the Collections of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum" (Nov. 14–Nov. 17: Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum Treasures Gallery) — Original artwork for Dick Tracy, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Bone, and more
• "Substance and Shadow: The Art of the Cartoon" (Nov. 14–Nov. 17: Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum) — "Original art ... which dramatically reveals the various elements, methods, tools and techniques that cartoonists utilize, including caricature, character design, sequential panels, speech balloons, page layout, animation and storytelling."^[10]

• International Comic Arts Forum