Love Comic fabric, 1970. Image from the Nicky Zann Archive, Dowd Illustration Research Archive, Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries.
St. Louis will soon be able to boast a unique, albeit strange, achievement: it will host three gallery exhibits featuring original art by comic creators. St. Louis enjoys a long tradition of supporting comics and nurturing comic creators, from Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Bill Mauldin and Mandrake the Magician artist Martha Davis to Howard the Duck writer/co-creator Steve Gerber and DC Comics Publisher Jim Lee. Exhibiting art by comic creators is nothing new to museums and galleries, but three gallery shows running simultaneously is possibly unprecedented in the Gateway City.
The first exhibit to open, “Behind the Feathers: A Century of Weatherbird History,” is currently running until February 2026 at the Eugene Field House Museum (634 S. Broadway). It focuses on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Weatherbird, who has appeared on the cover of the newspaper daily since 1901. The Weatherbird is “America’s oldest continuously drawn daily cartoon.” The Field House Museum has tapped into the insights, and collection, of Dan Martin, the artist of the Weatherbird since 1986. “Virtually the entire exhibit comes from my personal collection,” says Martin. “I chose to display items that would best illustrate the Weatherbird’s relationship with St. Louisans as well as put context to its history. We also have some ephemera that might surprise visitors. The overwhelming majority of items in the exhibit have never been shown to the public before. I believe anyone interested in St. Louis history and culture will learn something new as well as have some fun.”
The exhibit is engaging for longtime fans of the Weatherbird as well as attendees who have never heard of him: original art, toys, clothing, and other memorabilia over the decades are situated alongside thoughtful historical and biographical information about the artists and other key players in the Weatherbird’s lineage. Martin proudly notes that only six artists have drawn the Weatherbird daily over the years, and the exhibit displays original art by five of the six—”all the artists except for Oscar Chopin who drew it during the World’s Fair and shortly thereafter.”
Stephanie Lake, Curator of the Field House Museum, states that she wants museumgoers to see the important relationship between the Post-Dispatch and the region. “Our hope is that guests leave with a deeper appreciation for St. Louis’s rich newspaper legacy and a clearer sense of how the Post-Dispatch has both shaped—and been shaped by—the community,” says Lake. “We also want to highlight how that longstanding relationship has touched the Field House Museum and its historic home.”
For more information, call (314) 421-4689 or visit www.fieldhousemuseum.org.
“Nicky Zann: A Life in Art” is currently on view at the Thomas Gallery (inside the John M. Olin Library) at Washington University until December 14. Zann was an illustrator and comic artist who worked professionally for several decades. He was perhaps best known for his book cover illustrations and fine art. Zann passed away in 2020, sadly unable to appreciate this exhibit. After his passing, Zann’s wife and life partner, Mary Lou Falcone, actively sought out an institution to preserve and archive Zann’s work. She ultimately decided on Washington University due to its Dowd Illustration Research Archive.
The exhibit features a variety of materials created by Zann, including original art and published work, from process pieces to their final published forms. Though he was known for other mediums, Zann created art for Mad Magazine and romance titles for Charlton Comics during the 1970s. Andrea Degener, a Curator at Washington University’s Dowd Illustration Research Archive (and who organized the exhibition), states that there are several works of comic art on display. “These pieces include strips created for a younger audience, Amar and The Funny Bunch published by Scholastic News in the 1970s. Other comic works in the exhibit are original artwork for unpublished comics: Smidgen and the Blips, Spare Partz, and The Calling. All of these pieces show Zann’s versatility and skill.”
Between the preliminary sketches, finished art, and published pieces, “Nicky Zann: A Life in Art” should offer something for everybody interested in art and design during the last half of the twentieth century. As Degener opines, “I hope visitors leave feeling like they know Nicky Zann on some level. When I see the exhibit as a whole, I can ascertain that he was a deep thinker with a sense of humor. Many of his pieces make me stop and take notice, whether it is because of the composition, use of color, brilliant likeness of a caricature, or some mood or tone I just can’t put my finger on. To know Zann is to acknowledge that he was a gifted artist and deserves continued recognition and consideration as one of the preeminent illustrators of his time.”
You can see additional samples from the exhibition here. For more information, call (314) 935-5420 or visit library.washu.edu/locations/olinlibrary.
The most recent exhibit to open is at Webster University’s Kooyumjian Gallery (8300 Big Bend Blvd.), a “nonprofit gallery dedicated to photography and media arts.” It regularly devotes solo exhibits to individual artists, though rarely to a cartoonist. “Alex Schubert: Playset” will run until September 24. Cartoonist Schubert has published widely, including for Vice Magazine. His two collections of comics, Blobby Boys, were published by Koyama Press. A native of Mascoutah, Illinois, Schubert continues to create art and comics while teaching at St. Louis Community College.
Though Schubert has created a great deal of comics, there will be no sequential art in the exhibit. Schubert has stated that he encountered an anti-comics bias in the art world, particularly while studying at the Kansas City Art Institute. “There was still a lot of stigma around the artform in the early aughts. For years, I did tons of fine art stuff, showing work that used the ‘language’ of comics, without some of the other elements.” If it sounds like the exhibit will explore the terrain of comics, that is because it does. Some of the pieces on display will even feature characters from his comic strip Blobby Boys. “I’ve done comics, stickers, buttons, posters, clothing, toys, videogames, and even the pilot for a Cartoon Network series. Here, I’m imagining more Blobby Boys products. One trick that I use is to design each project for a specific person, and everything here was designed to appeal to my seven-year-old son.” Schubert is also including pages from his sketchbooks, which he describes drawing “in a meditative state.”
For more information, visit www.webster.edu/gallery/index.php. | Stephen Harrick
