A big "Thank You" to all the folks who helped make the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning a success!
Everyone has told me they had a great time and I cannot think of a nicer compliment. All I can say in response is that wonderful, generous, nice funny people make any gathering successful and the Festival had that in spades.
I first want to thank my guest artists: Sandra Bell Lundy, Paul Gilligan, Tom Richmond, John Hambrock, Scott Stantis, and Tom Bancroft. A special thanks to Tom Bancroft who stepped in when one of my speakers had a health issue and to Scott Stantis who gave his presentation on the heels of a death in the family only two weeks before the festival.
Anyone who works in cartooning knows about the never ending deadlines and how hard it can be to carve out three whole days to participate in something like this. The artists were incredibly generous with their time and all so gracious to the public, signing and sketching for everyone who asked, and a joy to work with overall. I've said it before and I'll say it again - cartoonists are the NICEST people and I feel honored to get to work with them.
A big thank you to John Read, publisher of "Stay Tooned" magazine and the curator of "One Fine Sunday in the Funny Pages". John does so much for cartoonists and the cartooning business - we all owe him a huge debt for the exposure he gives to the art form. I have seen One Fine Sunday five times now and every time it has been different and exciting and I see things I missed. The show is hanging in the H.F. Johnson Gallery of Art at Carthage College in Kenosha until November 5. If you missed the opening reception during the festival, there is still time to see a terrific exhibit of original cartoon art. (And if you are a cartoonist who will be in the area, please email me, we'd love to meet you if you come up to see the exhibit.)
A festival like this does not spring into being all on its own. It takes the hard work of many people working behind the scenes.
I would like to thank Diane Levesque for facilitating almost everything involving Carthage, Karen Peters for her invaluable help with guest accommodations, Leonard Schulze for his support of the festival and sage advice, Jon Marshall, Paul Chilsen, Sandra Bisciglia, Pam Smiley, and Christine Renaud for sponsoring speakers and inviting them to lecture to their classes, Karen Sorenson and Jon Graef for programming and sponsoring the Parkside Panel Discussion and Reception, Nancy Mathews for scheduling and sponsoring the speakers at the Kenosha Public Museum, Rachel Klees Anderson for her display of the work of the artists at the Museum, Ken Dowdell and Jared Thorson for the generous sponsorship, advertising and publicity of the Kenosha News, The Kenosha News staff who reported on and photographed for the festival publicity - Steve Lund, Kevin Poirer and Bill Robbins - Josh Frazer for designing a terrific logo for the festival, John Bloner of Kenosha Community Media for his tireless work on publicity and also for videotaping all our events, Judy Rossow and The Copy Center for providing all our printed materials, Mary Pat and Dave Andrea for their help with "welcome" gifts for the artists, my children for being largely self sufficient for the 3 months I took to plan the festival, and, finally, the biggest thank you of all to my husband John Hambrock for not only supporting me when I set out on this mad mission but also for designing every ad, poster and program while still meeting his strip deadline.
One of my primary goals with the festival was to keep all the events free and open to the public. This would not have been possible without the generous financial commitment of the following sponsors:
The Kenosha News
Carthage College Political Science Department
Carthage College Women's Faculty Learning Community
Carthage College Department of Communication and Digital Media
Carthage College English Department
Carthage College Art Department
The Kenosha Public Museum
The University of Wisconsin Parkside Art Department
Kenosha Community Media
The Copy Center
Elizabeth Brown
Dr. Jerome and Mrs. Joan Quets
Paul and Sally Huck
Dean and Marla Andrea
Marsha Caporaso
Albert and Diane Sorrell
Fran Hybert
Pascal and Gigi Rollet
Gregg and Diane Thompson
Dr. Clifford and Mrs. Gladys Peterson
Tom and Ruth Clark
Patricia Petretti
Steve and Tsai Wei Udry
Andreas Gifts
Dr. Sue Cable, D.D.S
Candace Ruffolo - "Frames To You"
Andrew Burroughs and Michelle Amundson
Jim and Rachel Lochtefeld
Chet Griffith - "Artworks"
Julia and Geoffrey Price
Roland and Anita Van Den Bergh
Tom Racine
In closing, there has been a lot of talk about making this an annual event. I'm not sure about the viability of that but I will tell you to mark your calendars for September 27,28 and 29 of next year.......
We'll see how it goes :-)
