Goldstein Library Updates - LibGuides at Ringling College of Art + Design

Blog post written by Dan Williford, Instructional Design Librarian

As a new Instructional Design Librarian here at the Alfred R. Goldstein Library, I am lucky to get to take part in collection building--that is, adding new materials to our permanent collection.

I am especially interested in resources and literary works related to LGBTQ+ topics. I also think that the work that our students do lends itself to the comics and graphic narrative genres, and so I have been searching out queer graphic literature that wasn't already in our collection. I'm happy to say we're adding new works regularly and here's the latest that have come in just in the past month. Most of this month's books are geared toward young adults, but not all.

Northranger by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo is based on Jane Austen's gothic Northanger Abbey, but with a queer twist. The story follows teen male Cade as he spends the summer on a ranch and gets caught up investigating local murders. Cade and his friend Henry spark a romance.

Blackwater by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham follows the story of two teen male protagonists who are apparently opposites by are friends that eventually become romantic. However Tony, the athletic track star, hides a secret of his identity that is monstrous.

In the The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag two female teen protagonists wrestle with life and a huge mystical secret. Gender non-conforming Mags explores relationships with other girls while protecting the secret that hides in her basement.

If you're looking for a traditional young adult novel, check out Out of the Blue by Jason June, featuring a merman who falls for a lifeguard; or Both Can be True by Jules Machias, a story that is in part about a non-binary teen navigating gender identity.

We have the first two books of the series Grand Slam Romance by Ollie Hicks and Emma Oosterhous, which centers on a girls softball team. There's magic and lesbian romance to be found in the colorful pages of this graphic novel series.

Brooms by Jasmine Walls and Teo DuVall features a story of witches merged with a historical narrative of America's racist past. It features Black and Latine witchy lead characters and lesbian romance.

Alison Bechdel's recent book The Secret to Superhuman Strength is yet another strong graphic narrative based on her own life, much like her award winning Fun Home.

If you're a fan of queer comics, check out American Literature: Queer About Comics, an issue of a journal with articles about the history of queer comics from a number of top scholars in the field. And have a look at DC Pride: The New Generation and DC Pride: Better Together, compendiums of queer superhero stories by the mega publishing house.

We've also just acquired several graphic narratives focused on trans and nonbinary characters. Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities by Mady G and Jules Zuckerberg is an up-to-date illustrated narrative describing queer gender identities. Welcome to St. Hell by Lewis Hancox and Upstaged by Robin Easter both tell the story of trans teens in high school. Finally, Transitions: A Mother's Journey by Elodie Durand is a touching narrative from the perspective of a mother struggling to understand and accept her child's trans identity.

Dan Williford recently joined Ringling’s Goldstein Library as an Instructional Design Librarian. He earned his Master’s in Library and Information Science from UCLA in 2019. He previously earned his PhD in English from UCLA in 2015 and taught undergraduate literature classes for two years there. He has worked in the library field since then, focusing on teaching information literacy and academic research.

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Will Eisner Week: Death in the Newspaper Revisited

Blog written by Tim DeForest, Library Circulation Manager. Will Eisner Week is annually the week of March 6th, and celebrates the “father of the Graphic Novel”. Visit willeisner.com for more information on Will Eisner and his legacy, and check out our materials on Will Eisner here at the Goldstein Library.In 1940, the Register and Tribune Syndicate of Des Moines began to distribute a 16-page comic book that newspapers would include in their Sunday edition (along with the regular comics section). Though their subscriber base was never large and their page count eventually dropped to 8 pages, this newspaper/comic book hybrid ran for 12 years.The main feature for the comic was The Spirit, created by Will Eisner. Except for a few years spent in the army during the war, Eisner drew the strip and did most of the writing. He often re-wrote scripts when he didn't originate them, so The Spirit was pretty much his baby from start to finish.Superheroes were all the rage in 1940, but Eisner resisted the pressure to turn his hero--criminologist Denny Colt--into a costumed hero. Instead, he slapped a mask and a pair of gloves on the character, which made everyone happy and left him free to tell the sort of stories he wanted to tell. Any one Spirit story might be a comedy, a hard-boiled crime story, a fantasy or a combination of genres. Often the Spirit was only a peripheral character in a particular story, because that story was centered on an inevitably fascinating one-shot character.I got to meet Mr. Eisner once when he spoke here at Ringling way back in 2004. It was just before my first book came out and the teacher (David Steiling) giving him the campus tour mentioned this. Mr. Eisner was kind enough to ask me about the book. When I mentioned that it was in part about pulp magazines such as Black Mask, he said he learned to write short stories from reading Black Mask. This was a magazine published before World War II and was responsible for popularizing the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. These were stories about tough private eyes and violent criminals, told in a terse style that doesn’t waste any words in getting to the point.And he was indeed a master of the short story format. The post-war Spirit stories, which usually ran only 7 pages, were models of concise storytelling and often packed an extraordinary emotional punch.For instance, the November 10, 1949 issue is about Freddie, a young man who is apparently well-liked in his neighborhood, but who sick of his life and wants to move on. Moving on costs money and the most convenient way to get money is to rob the local candy store.Well, we've been told right up front that this story is about the last ten minutes of Freddie's life, so it's not surprising when things go wrong. Freddie ends up killing the candy store owner and, after spending several tense moments serving malteds to customers while a corpse is hidden behind the counter, he's forced to make a run for it. The Spirit nearly catches him in a subway station--Freddie makes a break for it, but his hands get stuck in a subway car, pulling him to his death against a steel support.Several things make the story work. First, Eisner quickly but effectively sketches out Freddie's character for us. He looks young and his character design wouldn't be out-of-place in an Archie comic, but we soon see that he's a bitter man who's about to make several horribly bad decisions. We are made to sympathize with Freddie to a degree, but without in anyway being told to excuse his actions.Also, Eisner casually inserts a number of elements that remind us the entire story takes place in only ten minutes. For instance, on the first page there's a little girl bouncing a ball while reciting an alphabet rhyme. She's on "A my Name is Alice" when Freddie walks by on his way to the candy shop. She's still at the game, up to R when Freddie is fleeing for his life a few minutes later. It's such a simple thing, but it works perfectly, reminding us just how quickly events are unfolding.. I can really believe that Eisner learned to write short stories from Black Mask. Were this a prose story, it's exactly the sort of tale you'd have expected to find in that magazine.It you have an interest in writing and/or illustrating graphic literature, then this story has a lot to teach you about using both script and art together to tell a story well; how to lay out a plot without wasting time; and how to give your stories a real sense of movement and the passage of time. You can read this story in A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics, located on the library’s second floor in the Graphic Novel section (call # PN6726 .S58 1981).Circulation manager Tim DeForest behind his desk, with a photo of his first book! Tim DeForest has worked at Ringling for over 35 years, and has a wealth of comic knowledge! This blog was originally published on Tim's blog in February 2014 - over ten years ago, and ten years after he met Will Eisner! Visit him behind the library circulation desk, and be sure to check out the rest of his blog (Comics, old time radio, and other cool stuff), the other books he's written (which we have available for check out in Goldstein Library), and his YouTube Videos on comics.There is a Sarasota Herald-Tribune article about Eisner's visit to Sarasota in 2004, when he was 86 years old: HUISKING, CHARLIE. 2004. “Will Eisner’s Art Goes Far beyond ‘Funny Books.’” Sarasota Herald-Tribune. March 12, 2004. https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2004/03/12/will-eisners-art-goes-far-beyond-funny-books/28793548007/. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at OSU contains correspondence between Will Eisner and Ringling School of Art and Design in their Special Collections. Librarian Kelly Lindberg has reached out to OSU to ask if they can share this correspondence for our own archives, check back soon for updates!Will Eisner Week Display 2025, a selection of some materials available for check out at Goldstein Library!‌...

Conspiracies, Capitalism, and Collage: How Artists’ Books and Comics Confront the Chaos

Blog post written by Kelly Lindberg, Instructional Design LibrarianConspiracies, Capitalism, and Collage: How Artists’ Books and Comics Confront the ChaosIn an era where conspiracy theories shape political realities and deepfakes blur the line between truth and fiction, it often feels like we’re living inside a comic book. The Department of Truth takes this unsettling idea to its extreme: what if reality itself was determined by mass belief?Almost a month into Trump’s second term and almost five years after the pandemic started, I’d like to recommend this comic that I’ve paired with several artists’ books that resonate with the current state of the country. We’ve been in this world overwhelmed with misinformation, disinformation, and deepfakes for quite some time now, and it often feels like everything is changing too fast for any of us to keep up. To cope with current events, I’ve recently read every single issue of the comic The Department of Truth, which I first discovered by attending my local comic shop Bat City Comic Professional’s Fresh Start Book Club, all of which I cannot recommend enough. Much like The Department of Truth, artists' books have long been a medium for questioning dominant narratives, exposing political manipulation, and challenging how we perceive reality. By pairing these works, we can explore how visual storytelling—whether in comics or book art—helps us navigate this post-truth world. The Department of Truth and the War on RealityWriter James Tynion IV, artist Martin Simmonds, letterer Aditya Bidikar, and designer Dylan Todd form the brilliant team behind The Department of Truth, which was first released on September 30, 2020. The series presents an alternate America in which Lee Harvey Oswald is alive and leading the government’s “Department of Truth,” an organization designed to push the nation’s agenda by propelling mass belief in constructed realities. In this world, every conspiracy theory that gains enough traction becomes real.Tynion has noted that his inspiration for The Department of Truth came from the 2016 presidential election. The comic explores how misinformation spreads and how belief shapes power structures, reflecting the challenges we face in today’s media landscape. Fig. 1: pg 79 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics Fig. 2: pg. 199 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics I firmly believe that Ringling staff and students will particularly appreciate how much depth and care was put into the creation of this series. In a fantastically enlightening interview with the comics’ creators, The Nation points out, “A reader experiencing The Department of Truth for the first time will likely make connections to the collage-heavy art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, like surrealism or pop art. The most direct influence seems to be Brought to Light, a “graphic docudrama” anthology by Alan Moore, Bill Sinkiewicz, Joyce Brabner, Tom Yeates, and Paul Mavrides from 1988, whose style was partially influenced by the propaganda comics the CIA once issued in countries like Nicaragua to disrupt leftist movements.” Simmonds tells the interviewer: “My relationship with collage goes back to my love of comic artists Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, and Jon J Muth, mixed-media artist Robert Rauschenberg, and graphic designer David Carson, among others”. Martin Simmonds' visuals using mixed-media techniques reinforce the idea that truth itself is fragmented and contested. You can see an example of this in Figure 3 (shown below) which uses inverted, cut-up pieces of the pledge of allegiance as the gutters of the comic. Fig. 3: excerpt from pg. 195 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics Fig. 4: pg. 309 of The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Martin Simmonds, Image Comics While I’m amazed by Simmonds’ artistry throughout the whole series, as demonstrated in the snapshots above, I’d like to highlight issue #7 of the comic, a flashback story illustrated by guest artist Tyler Boss, who tells the story of a young “Doc” Hynes who publishes and circulates his manifesto “Resist the Men in Black!”. Inspired by early science fiction fanzines, this issue connects the comic’s themes to real-world conspiracy subcultures, making it an especially relevant discussion point. Hynes eventually wears tin foil as a makeshift hat to shield his brain from telepathic brain waves, inspired by an article he read in an issue of Amazing Stories. The Ringling Library collection has a copy of a similar publication called Astounding Science from 1938, and you can view it by appointment.Fig. 5: pg. 172, Fig. 6: pg 174, The Department of Truth: The Complete Conspiracy Volume One, Tyler Boss, Image Comics Artists’ Books as Counter-Narratives Photograph of materials in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center at Ringling College of Art + DesignJust as The Department of Truth unpacks the mechanisms of misinformation, many artists’ books challenge the political and social structures that enable it. Similarly, artists’ books use mixed-media and experimental design to disrupt conventional narratives. As Jane Anne Carlin notes in Artists' Books as Catalysts for Social Change, “Approaching conversations about difficult issues using the artists’ book as a jumping-off point causes us to slow down, reflect, and think deeply.” This deep thinking also allows for the capability of differentiating fact from fiction—a skill we all need to harness.Listed below are some powerful works that, much like the comic, force us to question the narratives we’re told:Louise Odes Neaderland’s Trump Circus and Trump Wallpaper Borders reflect the manipulation of political spectacle—much like the Department’s work in the comic. Fig. 7: photograph of the opened box of Trump Wallpaper Borders, Another favorite of mine that we have in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center by Neaderland is the Nuclear Fan. Fig. 8: photograph of the Nuclear Fan, Louise Odes NeaderlandFred Hagstrom’s The Blue and The Red examines the January 6th attack on the Capitol, using congressional testimony and archival photographs printed in relief and silkscreen to document the real-world consequences of misinformation.Fig. 9, 10: photographs of pages from The Blue and The Red, Fred HagstomDavid Stairs’ Living in Denial, U.S.A. juxtaposes economic statistics with maps of Oregon, questioning the realities we accept about data (I also highly recommend viewing Mona Chalabi’s TEDTalk on bad statistics for more on this topic).Fig. 12, 13: photographs of pages from Living in Denial, U.S.A. by David StairsDale Edwin Wittig’s Capitalism’s Collapse ruminates on a near-apocalyptic vision of crumbling global capitalism with his hand scrawled captions and graphic illustrations, mirroring themes of instability explored in The Department of Truth.Fig. 14: photograph of pages from Capitalism’s Collapse by Dale Edwin Wittig Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach’s Whereas... we declare compiles text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (proposed to the United Nations by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948) alongside statistics on immigration, challenging governmental narratives about rights and citizenship. Fig. 15: photograph of pages from Whereas... we declare by Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach All of the artists’ books mentioned can be viewed in Ringling’s Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center by appointment. You can read the first issue of The Department of Truth for free online through Image Comics, or check out the omnibus from the Alfred R. Goldstein Library. **For combatting misinformation, I’d also recommend reading How to Win the War On Truth : an illustrated guide to how mistruths are sold, why they stick, and how to reclaim reality by Samuel C. Spitale, illustrated by Allan Whincup, or you can book a session with me and I’ll nerd out over Mike Caulfield. P.S. - Jordie Bellaire is a Ringling alum who was a colorist for The Department of Truth! About the Author Kelly Lindberg is an Instructional Design Librarian at Ringling College of Art + Design’s Alfred R. Goldstein Library, with a longstanding interest in zines and comics. She actively incorporates these passions into her teaching of information literacy to students. A shorter version of this blog was published on bookarttheory.org for the College Book Arts' Association.Feel free to connect with her at klindber@ringling.edu, or on Instagram: @comic.kelly Works Cited Carlin, Jane Anne. "Artists' Books as Catalysts for Social Change." Art Libraries Journal 44, no. 1 (01, 2019): 2-8, Hagstrom, Fred, and publisher Strong Silent Type Press. The Blue and the Red / Fred Hagstrom. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2024. Keljera, ML. “A Comic That Captures the Antic Energy of a Post-Truth World.” The Nation. March 2023. Kellner, Tana, Ann E Kalmbach, and publisher Women’s Studio Workshop. Whereas... We Declare / KaKeArt: Tatana Kellner & Ann Kalmbach. Rosendale, NY: Women’s Studio Workshop, 2018. Neaderland, Louise Odes. The Nuclear Fan. 3rd ed. Brooklyn, NY: Bone Hollow Arts, 1999. Neaderland, Louise Odes. Trump Circus. Brooklyn, NY: Louise Neaderland, 2017. Neaderland, Louise Odes. Trump Wallpaper Borders. Brooklyn, New York: [Louise Odes Neaderland], 2017. Stairs, David. Living in Denial USA. Mt. Pleasant, Mich., D. Stairs, 2005. Tynion, James, Martin Simmonds, Aditya Bidikar. The Department of Truth. Portland, OR: Image Comics, 2020-ongoing. Wittig, Dale. Capitalisms Collapse / Dale Edwin Wittig. San Francisco, California: Red Hammer Press, 2017....

Working in the Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center

Blog post written by Olga Nerciu, Motion Design '27, Special Collections AssistantWalking down the aisles, enclosed with shelves of meticulously placed books, each enveloped and assigned a long code of letters and numbers. I would scan through them, looking for the right one, the numbers would hint at where to look. “Bingo!” Take it, scan it, register in the system, display on the shelves, scan it again, put it back. This is how my shifts started as a Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center student worker. It did not take long to learn how wrong I was reducing our collection’s items to their mere numbers.I am Olga, motion design sophomore at Ringling College of Art and Design from Moldova. In fall 2024, I started working as a Special Collection student assistant, picking a wide range of skills and responsibilities, from organizing and registering books, to creating merchandise and even writing a blog! By my side, I always have Muling Tzai, another student worker from Taiwan, and Cheri Marks, Special Collections Librarian and Archivist(my boss). Our Special Collections Center specializes in rare artists’ books, publication projects, art prints, zines and many more. We are driven to introduce the general public to both niche and recognized artistic creations via hands-on object based experience. I myself was amazed by the variety of items in our collection: broadsides, campus materials, democratic multiples, documentation of time-based and performance projects, engravings, exhibition publications, experimental writing, fine press books, flip books, handmade editions, historic facsimiles, parlor toys, photographs, pop-up books, prints, rare books, zines, and more.My favorite part about Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center is the unique tactile experience we give access to. Anyone coming to our center can literally touch art and connect with the artist on the other side of the page. I believe that utilizing primary sources is a game changer in any scholarly research. Engaging with physical original materials rewards with more insights into a particular subject, compared to internet/digital research. Touching or closely observing an artifact allows researchers to feel a deeper connection to the material. For example, examining an ancient manuscript provides a sense of its age, authenticity, and craftsmanship. Images by Olga Nerciu, spreads from “Giving Fear a Proper Name, Detroit” by Susan Kae Grant, 2025 My favorite artwork to physically interact with is “Giving Fear a Proper Name, Detroit” by Susan Kae Grant. It follows the artist’s journey as she moved to Detroit, supported by images from her dreams, nightmares and daily experiences, interpreted in symbolic manner. I was stunned to find strands of artist’s hair, human teeth, accompanied by pictures of body parts, nails and increments of dirt and sand. The overwhelming experience from the book could have never been felt through digital research. Seeing the book and touching it, even smelling it, submerged me into the artist's world, where I was guided by mysterious pieces of her writing to undergo the same experiences and storylines.Hence, experiences are made to be shared. Artworks such as “Giving Fear a Proper Name, Detroit” inspire us to hold exhibitions, led by conceptual themes that unite various art pieces and artists, bringing a holistic experience of an era or movement to our audience. Our visitors are welcome to interact with the items and witness the line between a book and a work of art blur. Our Special Collections Center is open to collaborations and exhibition ideas proposed by faculty and students! I am most curious to observe my colleague, Muling, creating branding identity for our exhibitions, setting the mood for it. Thanks to her, our visitors always leave with a cute sticker, postcard or brochure to remember the event.I find myself again, walking down the aisles on my weekly shift, looking straight through envelopes, through long codes of letters and numbers, as each book is rather a story, a person, an entire universe for me to dive into. This is how my shifts are, as a Brizdle-Schoenberg Special Collections Center student worker. This blog post can also be viewed on the College Book Art Association blog, Book Art Theory....

Goldstein Library's Most Stylistic Manga

Blog post written by Emily Kang, Illustration '25, Library Research ConsultantHello again, everyone! It's about that time where the school year is starting to buckle down almost to an uncomfortable degree. You'll have to stay up longer working on those assignments, and the people around you are gripping their tablet pens harder in a rush to get things done. When it comes down to that, remember take the time to curl up with a fictional story with art that flies off the pages and a message that contemplates the fleetingness of human life…Today we're going to be discussing my favorite visual medium of all time, the thing that rocketed me into my art career and filled my childhood with wonder: manga. In fact, it was the local library near my house that started me on my hunt for these elusive comics. If you've ever been a fan of a show that broadcasted outside of your country, and could never get any merchandise or support for, you were probably aware of one thing: this media was not made for you in mind. It's been a furious battle to want to support your favorite comics and stories while not being able to read them in their original language. Fortunately, localization for our favorite Japanese manga has become commonplace: and we have the privilege of being able to read them at our local Goldstein library.I'll make this list in the most appealing way I know how. Art students love visuals. So do I. So I'll talk about some of the most stylistic manga we've got on the shelves.Land of the Lustrous Land of the Lustrous is hypnotically beautiful. It's a love letter to line, shape and rhythm wrapped up in Buddhist iconography. The open landscapes seem endless, and the buildings host large arcs that open up to the sky with some of the thinnest lines I've seen used in manga. Author Haruko Ichikawa is a master at capturing the intricate, wiry forms of The Lustrous as they travel through the golden wheat lands and along the crust of the shimmering seas. Enter main character Phos, who is the weakest among their kind and prone to shattering into pieces; they wish to find their own purpose as their companions battle the Lunarians. This manga is an experience, hands-down. It's also an open question to humanity from something that is not quite human: what is one supposed to do without a purpose in life? And how can you find one if you don't have any skills? Tekkon Kinkreet Matsumoto, Taiyo Matsumoto, TaiyoTaiyō Matsumoto's chaotic style is irresistibly appealing and instantly recognizable in motif: just look for the roughed-up boy in goggles sitting on the edge of a broken city. Tekkon Kinkreet (or Black and White) tells the story of two orphans known as stray cats who terrorize the gangs and citizens of Treasure Town. These yin-yang brothers hop along the fences of stylistically leaned buildings and leap through the sky littered with Tibetan style clouds. The style is downright crude, to put it kindly, and leans towards the styles of an independent Western comic rather than a Japanese one. It's a fascinating, beautiful read. Among Matsumoto's works also is multiple volumes of the series Sunny. Witch Hat Atelier The gorgeous delicacy of Kamome Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier has given it a lot of attention on social media, with an animated series being set to release sometime in 2015. The author not only puts bucketloads of details into the clothes and hair of the characters, she also makes a point to focus on the landscapes. The characters travel through old, traditional towns carefully lined buildings and stretches of mountain ranges all littered patiently placed dots and hatchmark rendering. Reading it gives me the same sort of wistfulness and comfort as I would opening a European fairy tale book with gold leaf engraved on the sides. It's a beautiful story about the potential of magic and kindness and growing up, set through the eyes of 10 year old Coco, who is taken on as an apprentice of the mysterious witch Qifrey. Double I will proudly admit to being the one who requested Double by Ayako Noda for our library. This is a niche pick but has quickly grown to become one of my favorites series. It's a work about the curious relationship between two actors and their love for the stage. The transition of theater onto comic pages is something that works beautifully with the author's style – the facial expressions are bold and endlessly dramatic, even bordering on eerie; the characters' movements are always animated and bright. The wispy lines and usage of dramatic blacks suggest an off-ness to the work that is present in the heavily codependent relationship of the main characters. Follow Takara Takarada (yes, that's his real name), who struggles even to read, dress and feed himself without his friend's help but is a secret genius under the lights of the stage.There are so many more of my favorites, some of which have yet to be added in the collection. This world is huge, and manga is just a small piece of the larger industry of art and comics in the world. But it touches the hearts of many. (As always, if you have a recommendation for the library, submit a request so that you and your friends can enjoy it!) ...

New Queer Graphic Literature

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