About the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: The BICLM is one of The Ohio State University Libraries’ special collections. Its primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to the collections. Museum Gallery Hours The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum exhibition galleries are open to the public and admission is FREE.Masks are required. Reservations are required, please visit.

Matsumoto, Akira (Reiji). Aoi Hanabira (Blue Petals) (Tokyo: Showa Manga Shuppansha, 1958)

Contact: Caitlin McGurk
The Ohio State University
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
1813 N High St.
Columbus OH 43210-1393
614-292-0538
cartoons@osu.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 17, 2015

Upcoming Exhibition and Symposiums at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

WORLD OF SHOJO MANGA!
MIRRORS OF GIRLS’ DESIRES

March 28, 2015 – July 5, 2015

Columbus: The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will celebrate Women’s History Month, and their international cartoon holdings, with the opening of World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls’ Desires, a traveling exhibit curated by Masami Toku, Dept. of Art and Art History, CSU-Chico.

Many different kinds of manga have been published for different ages, genders, and fans’ favorite themes since the 1970s. One of the major characteristics of Japanese manga is that it has split into boy’s (shonen) and girl’s (shojo) manga, each developing in its own way. Based on reader’s expectations, each boy’s and girl’s manga has its own theme. Regardless of the subject, the main theme in boy’s manga is competitive fighting, and how the heroes become men by protecting women, family, country, or the earth from enemies, while the main theme of girl’s manga is simply love. Within this context, the topics in shojo manga have changed in response to girl’s expectations and have developed into diverse subjects over the last 70 years since World War I. This exhibition will focus on discussing the specific phenomenon of women’s changing roles and expectations in Japan.

The exhibition will feature works by 12 artists, including female mangaka Masako Watanabe, Miyako Maki, Hideko Mizuno, Machiko Satonaka, and Moto Hagio.

Masami Toku, curator of this exhibit, is a professor in the Department of Art and Art History (CSU), Chico, where she teaches courses in art education and multicultural perspectives of art appreciation. She also works internationally as an educator, publisher, researcher, and speaker. Professor Toku created this touring exhibition to explore the role of visual pop culture that impacts U.S. society through the phenomenon of manga in Japan. It also introduces manga’s value and contribution to visual culture and society with a special emphasis on shojo manga.

King Billy Songs

This exhibit will be part of a continuing celebration of manga throughout the spring semester, including two symposiums: Classic Manga and Development & Globalization of Manga (more info below).

Join us on Saturday, April 4th from 5 – 7pm for the opening reception of World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls’ Desires in The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum galleries. Cosplayers are welcome and encouraged!

Also on display at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will be Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women. Separate details forthcoming.

Kurara no Mizuumi (Clara’s Lake) cover illustration – Interview

About the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: The BICLM is one of The Ohio State University Libraries’ special collections. Its primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to the collections. The BICLM recently moved into its newly-renovated 30,000 sq. ft. facility that includes a museum with three exhibition galleries, a reading room for researchers and a state-of-the-art collections storage space. The library reading room is open Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 – 5 p.m. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday from 1 – 5 p.m. See http://cartoons.osu.edu/ for further information.

________________________________________________

MANGA at A CROSSROADS: SYMPOSIUMS I & II

Symposium 1: Classic Manga

Date: Friday, March 6
Location: Thompson Library 165

12:00-12:10: Opening

12:10-1:10: Prof. Maureen Donovan (OSU) “Comics from the Time of ‘Erotic Grotesque Nonsense’: Yomiuri Sunday Manga of 1930-1931”

1:10-2:10: Prof. Thomas LaMarre (McGill University) “Manga Empire: Companion Species and Shōnen Kurabu”

2:10-2:15: Break

2:15-3:15: Prof. Gennifer Weisenfeld (Duke University) “Laughing in the Face of Calamity: Visual Satire after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923”

3:15-4:15: Prof. Natsu Onoda Power (Georgetown University) “Questioning the Racial Question: Representations of Human Faces in Classic Manga”

4:30: Reception

Symposium 2: Development and Globalization of Manga
Date: Saturday, April 4, 2015
Location: Sullivant Hall 220

1:00-1:10: Opening

1:10-2:10: Prof. Masami Toku (California State University, Chico) “World of Shōjo Manga!: Mirrors of Girls’ Desires”

2:10-3:10: Prof. Jennifer Prough (Valparaiso University) “Local Texts, Global Audiences: a View from within the Shōjo Manga Industry”

3:10-3:15: Break:

3:15-4:15: Prof. Kerim Yasar (OSU) “Marketing Manga in the U.S.: Translational Strategies, Transnational Flows”

4:15-5:15: Prof. Casey Brienza (City University of London) “Global Manga: ‘Japanese’ Comics without Japan?”

5:15-5:30: Wrap-up

5:30: Reception

Sponsors: East Asian Studies Center, Institute for Japanese Studies, Ohio State University Libraries, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Department of History of Art, Department of Arts Administration, Education & Policy, Division of Arts and Humanities, Association for Asian Studies, Japan Foundation, and US Department of Education (Title VI)

For more information and printable flyers click here: http://easc.osu.edu/manga2015

“Soyo” byTennen Kokeko. Back cover image of Tankobon 1

William vs James

On 1 July 1690, two armies faced each other across the River Boyne, just to the north of Dublin in Ireland.

The commander on the north side was William of Orange, a Dutch Protestant, who had recently been crowned King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The commander on the south side was James II, the deposed Catholic king, who had lost his throne to William only the year before.

The two men were linked by blood and family ties. James II was both the uncle of William of Orange and his father-in-law.

In 1688, William was invited to seize James II’s throne by Protestant nobles who feared James was founding a Catholic royal dynasty. James, who chose not to oppose him, was captured then allowed to escape to exile in France.

James arrives in Ireland

In March 1689, James landed in Ireland with troops supplied by the Catholic King Louis XIV of France. France was the greatest military power in Europe at the time and Louis was William’s sworn enemy.

James saw Ireland as the back door through which he could invade England and regain his crown. Predominantly Catholic Ireland readily rallied to the ‘Jacobite’ (from the Latin for James) cause.

Fergal Keane charts James’s progress from Kinsale northwards for the 2011 series ‘The Story of Ireland’.

King Billy Of Ireland

William arrives in Ireland

Throughout his reign, William’s focus was always firmly on his fight to bring to an end Louis XIV’s domination of Europe. The crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland were vital to his ongoing struggle. James’s army represented a significant threat that William had to deal with decisively.

William’s invasion force was the largest Ireland had ever seen. Altogether he had more than one thousand horses to draw his artillery and gun equipment. An eye-witness recalled Belfast Lough (the body of water connecting Belfast to the sea) looking like a wood:

“There being no less than seven hundred sail of ships in it, mostly laden with provisions and ammunition. The great numbers of coaches, waggons, baggage horses and the like is almost incredible to be supplied from England, or any of the biggest nations in Europe. I cannot think that any army of Christendom hath the like.”

William himself stepped ashore at the northern port of Carrickfergus on 14 June 1690, where this pale asthmatic monarch, his face lined with the constant pain of fighting ill health, said in halting English that he had come to ensure the people of Ireland would be “settled in a lasting peace”.

The Pope backs King Billy

William is celebrated to this day as a champion of Protestantism, but he was nonetheless backed by the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Alexander VIII. The Pope was part of a ‘Grand Alliance’ against Louis XIV’s warring in Europe and supported William’s reconquest of Ireland.

William’s army

William’s army reflected his leadership of the Grand Alliance. The core consisted of Dutch, Danish, Germans and Huguenots (French Protestants persecuted by Louis XIV). His English troops were mainly raw recruits, reinforced by Ulster Protestant ‘skirmishers’. These were described by the army chaplain George Story as being “…half-naked with sabre and pistols hanging from their belts, like a horde of Tartars”.

James’s army

While most of William’s men were professional, well-paid, well-armed and recently fed, James’s Irish infantrymen were often armed only with scythes and farm tools. But their morale was high and - thanks to Louis XIV - they had some of the best cavalry in Europe.

The Boyne

The River Boyne lies 30 miles north of Dublin. It was the last natural barrier facing William as he marched south towards the city and James’s stronghold. James chose to make a stand at the Boyne, enshrining it as the location where, for the last time, two crowned kings of England, Scotland and Ireland would meet in battle.

William crosses the Boyne

King Billy Ireland

William was known for his sometimes reckless courage and the Boyne was no different. He decided to investigate the river’s crossing points for himself and was shot at by Jacobite officers. It was rumoured that William was dead, but a bullet had only grazed his shoulder. He shrugged it off, reputedly saying: “Ce boulet est venu bien pres. Ce n'est rien” ('The ball came close enough, but it's nothing”).

At almost 40 years of age William was a battlehardened commander and a veteran of countless campaigns. By contrast James, once praised for gallantry in battle as a younger man, was in his late fifties with his best years as a military leader behind him.

After four hours of fierce fighting a significant body of William’s men had made it across to the Boyne’s southern riverbank. James’s cavalry had them pinned down, but they held and James gave the order to retreat. A rout was avoided by Louis XIV’s cavalry skilfully covering the withdrawal. ‘Battlefield Britain’ illustrates how William took the decision to lead his horsemen across the river.

King Billy Ireland Wikipedia

Myths have grown up around the image of William crossing the Boyne. The military historian Richard Doherty dispels some of these for BBC Northern Ireland’s ‘You Thought You Knew King Billy’.

The battle ended on high ground above the southern side of the river.

Aftermath

Dr. Padraig Lenihan of the National University of Ireland sums up the aftermath of the battle for ‘The Story of Ireland’.

Despite his army retreating in good order, James quickly abandoned them and returned to exile in France. William marched into Dublin and finally secured his reconquest of Ireland with the Treaty of Limerick in 1691.

William’s victory ended James II’s hope of regaining his throne. William was now securely in control of England, Scotland and Ireland, which would ultimately help him to reverse Louis XIV’s military conquests in Europe.

William ruled jointly with his wife Mary (James II’s daughter). Their reign marked an important transition from the direct rule of monarchs like James towards a more parliamentary system.

In Ireland, William’s victory dashed Jacobite hopes of recovering property that had been confiscated from Irish landowners since the days of Oliver Cromwell.

But for Protestants, it secured their ascendancy in Ireland. In Ulster it ensured the survival of the Protestant, English-speaking colonies known as the Plantation. The victory is still celebrated every 12 July in Northern Ireland by the Orange Order, named for William of Orange.

Why 12 July?

The Battle of the Boyne was fought on 1 July 1690, according to the old Julian calendar. This was reformed and replaced with the Gregorian calendar, which was adopted in Britain in 1752 and added eleven days to ‘old style’ dates. The victory is therefore celebrated on 12 July.