“It’s one of those things where you laugh so hard you fart, or you cry.”  “Comics are better than sandwiches – there’s more to them.” These are just two comments made by students at the Center for Cartoon Studies, as seen in Cartoon College, a film by Josh Melrod and Tara Wray that will be released later this year.

First of all, who would imagine that the only MFA program solely devoted to the education of cartoonists would be in rural Vermont? Or that inveterate urbanites like Art Spiegelmanm and Jules Pfeiffer would drive more than 250 miles to the town of White River Junction to teach there? This is for real – and so is the film, which is a documentary about the school. And it all makes sense when you explore the CCS website, where multifaceted opportunities for artists unfold like an accordion book.

Left: Chris Ware, in a still from Cartoon College; courtesy Thunderpony Productions. Right: CCS cartoonists look on as Deborah Howe, Collections Conservator at Dartmouth College Library, scores her cover; courtesy Beth Hetland.

Not only do the student cartoonist hone their skills with faculty members including CCS founder James Sturm, along with Alec Longstreth, and Sarah Stewart Taylor, they get frequent infusions of worldly advice from visiting artists such as Ed Koren, Lynda Barry, and Chris Ware, among others.

In addition, CCS immerses their students in many aspects of book arts in general and library science as well. For example, MFA candidates were recently invited by the Preservation Services Department at Dartmouth College (above right) to participate in a Book Arts Workshop on binding suggestions and techniques that could be applied to their thesis packaging, which is due in May.

And the Schultz Library, located in a restored firehouse overlooking the White River, houses a substantial collection of contemporary graphic novels and zines, as well as out-of-print and rare collections of gag cartoons and classic newspaper strips. Over the winter, the librarian invited everyone in town to join the intern librarian and students on Saturdays in a “Barcode Bonanza,” an all-out effort to re-catalog over 10,000 volumes in the stacks. Local firemen, baristas, and a professional singer joined in to wrangle books by the thousands into submission, fueled by lots of strong coffee and healthy snacks.

So if cartooning is your passion, and you don’t want to wait for the release of Cartoon College (watch the trailer), plan to visit MoCCA Fest 2011, the annual comics festival, this weekend at the Lexington Avenue Armory. 68 Lexington Avenue (between 25^th and 26^th Streets), NY, NY. Tickets at the door: $12/day or $20 for the weekend.

The Center for Cartoon Studies is among the hundred plus exhibitors that represent both the indie and established side of comics and cartooning, from artists selling zines out of their backpacks to indie publishers such as Rabid Rabbit, and trade  publishers like Pantheon, Fantagraphics, and Drawn + Quarterly. The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art, the festival host, has organized wall-to-wall panels and programs for the two-day event on April 9^th and 10^th.

In related news, The release of the double-issue-flip-book anthology Rabid Rabbit #13 & C’est Bon Kultur #14, Bergen Street Comics will be celebrated with a show of original art by the creators of Rabid Rabbit and C’est Bon Kultur at an opening reception on Friday, April 8^th starting at 8pm at Bergen Street Comics, 470 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY.

This just in from Peggy Burns, Associate Publisher at Drawn + Quarterly:
This year at MoCCA, D+Q is featuring our international authors including Joe Ollmann and Pascal Girard of Montreal, and Brecht Events of Belgium, as well as our NYC authors Adrian Tomine, Jillian Tamaki and R. Sikoryak. Joe, Pascal and Brecht are all featured in MoCCA's programming, as well as signings at our table. We will also be debuting Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Japan's most famous cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki.

This from Michelle Ollie, co-founder of The Center for Cartoon Studies:
The Center for Cartoon Studies will have an incredible lineup of new collaborative work produced by students and alumni to be released at MoCCA this weekend, including Alumni Joe Lambert's latest from Secret Acres, I Will Bite You! and Alumna Colleen Frakes’s new title, Quatro Montro.

And this from filmmakers Josh Melrod and Tara Wray (Cartoon College):
MoCCA is cool because it provides a clear sense of what's happening in independent and small press comics. At MoCCA you get a glimpse into all of the different branches that exist inside the larger world of independent comics, which, as we've learned making our film, has become so diffuse that it can be hard to make sense of. And another great thing is that much of the work being sold there is mini-comics, so that you get to see this burgeoning market for hand-made art objects that, regardless of subject matter, are really personal and unique and would be really hard to find and collect if not for a place like MoCCA where all the creators are under one roof.