Cartoon Limbo At VENU Gallery

"Cartoon Limbo," an exhibit which featured 29 artists and their cartoons, correspondence, rejection slips, anecdotes, and stunning original art related to the business of cartoon art and illustrations which have been turned down for publication at some point, was a great success. In its one month run at Venu Gallery, it was attended by over 1,000 people.

(l. to r.) Venu Gallery prior to opening night, Opening night, Diane Velletri and Bonnie Ray talking "Limbo," Lewis Matheney with featured cartoonist Gerry Olin Greengrass

Several websites and blogs discussed "Cartoon Limbo," from "Journalista: The Comics Journal Weblog," to Mike Lynch, chairperson for the Long Island chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, who featured it, along with photos of the opening night reception on his much-followed website.

Click here to read Mike's blog and see photos from opening night.

Thanks to NBC and Today New York for their feature on "Cartoon Limbo"

Thanks to the following artists for participating in "Cartoon Limbo." Click on any of their names to view their websites.

In alphabetical order:

Jon Agee
Santiago "Chago" Armada
Carl Barks
Dick Briefer
Art Cumings
Jeff Danziger
Simone Di Bagno
Stan Goldberg
Naxieli Gomez
Gerry Greengrass
Woody Guthrie
Irwin Hasen
Bunny Hoest
Crockett Johnson
Michael Klein
Karla Kuskin
Mike Lynch
Ruth Marcus
Lewis Matheney
John Reiner
Sergio Ruzzier
Charles Schulz
Maurice Sendak
Dr. Seuss
Monica Sheehan
Jay Stephens
James Thurber
Joe Vissichelli
Mort Walker

Cartoon Limbo Press: Time Out New York

Out of ‘toon
An exhibit spotlights classic cartoonists’ work that never made it.


Sometimes your best just isn’t good enough. It’s a maxim doodlers have had to accept in order to survive in the fickle world of cartooning. “Cartoon Limbo,” which opens at Venu Gallery on Fri 5, displays reams of rough sketches, illustrations and refusal letters that attest to the universal experience of rejection shared by cartoon artists. It also aims to explain why these works were spurned.

“Actually, the bigger the name the easier it was to get them,” says curator Lewis Matheney, who received pieces from the Charles M. Schulz Museum and convinced the likes of Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker and Archie cartoonist Stan Goldberg to hand over their stashes of circular-filed sketches for the show. “Gerry Greengrass is a perfect example,” says Matheney. “She was selling a lot of her work to Playboy in the ’60s. But when she finally met the art director, and he realized she was a woman, she never sold a piece to them again.”

Racy riffs like the Stan Goldberg one depicted here, didn’t make the cut either. “I don’t think I ever got a reason,” Goldberg laughs. The gagster submitted it to one of the lowbrow “men’s adventure” pulp mags like Argosy (PG-rated by today’s porny lad-mag standards). “It’s just timing and an editor’s mood when he sees it. Nine times out of ten, if you’d submit it again they’d accept it.”

Not everyone is eager to hand over sketches from their scrap heap, though. “A lot of people are scared by the idea of rejection,” notes Matheney, “especially younger cartoonists who haven’t really established a name for themselves.”

Thankfully, some big players like the Schulz Museum share Matheney’s vision. “They donated letters that Schulz had written to a wartime buddy,” says Matheney. “Schulz was telling his friend how nobody was picking up his work. Of course, two years later, Peanuts was syndicated.” — Daniel Derouchie

“Cartoon Limbo” opens Friday 5.