Brown University Library has received the first two installments of a projected multi-year gift of comic books, graphic novels, and other materials related to comic art in popular culture. The Collection was amassed by Michael J. Ciaraldi, an independent computer consultant and comic art enthusiast, from the 1970s to the present.



The first year's installment included 2,225 titles in 6,388 issues. This year's, currently being processed, is expected to triple the number of titles and issues held. The Collection includes extensive runs of the major "superhero" comics of the past two decades, and is particularly noteworthy for the many titles published by small and independent producers who flourished in the 1980s. There are also over 700 graphic novels present in the Collection to date, including such works as the graphic edition of Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat. The history of the art is well represented by many reissues and collector's editions of classic "golden age" comics, such as the first issue of Action Comics (June, 1938), in which the character of Superman was introduced, and the compilations of newspaper strips, such as Prince Valiant and Terry and the Pirates.



The Collection includes work by influential "alternative" comic artists of the 1960s and 1970s, such as R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman, author of Maus. There are also magazines influenced by the popularity of the French Métal Hurlant adult science fiction comics, which trace their inspiration to the French student revolts of the 1960s. It features many English translations of the Japanese "manga" and "anime" comics, with their roots in Japanese animated films, as well. There are, in addition, runs of British graphic satirical magazines and fan and collectors' journals, advertising ephemera, periodicals on animated films and film-to-comic "crossovers", adult erotica, role-playing fantasy game materials, and Walt Disney characters.



When the entire Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection, estimated to contain 60,000 items, is transferred to Brown University Library over the next few years, it will constitute one of the largest collections of comics and comic art in an American library. The Collection will join and supplement the Wayne D. Poulin collection of comics (10,000 issues), donated by Brown University Professor Barton St. Armand, and the extensive comic and graphic art holdings of the Miller Collection of Wit and Humor. In addition, the Collection includes materials that complement the H. Adrian Smith Collection of Conjuring and Magicana, the H. P. Lovecraft Collection, the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays, and even the McLellan Lincoln Collection.



The portions of the Ciaraldi Collection that have been transferred to the Library have been sorted and inventoried, and manual records for all titles and issues are available. A collection-level record for the Ciaraldi Collection is being added to Josiah and to the national databases. Once the entire Collection has been transferred and inventoried, a Web database will be constructed, using existing cataloging records from other institutions and manually created FileMaker Pro records.

The Collection is housed at the John Hay Library, and may be consulted by all researchers during ordinary business hours. For further information, contact Rosemary L. Cullen, Curator of the Harris Collection, the John Hay Library, by mail at Box A, by telephone at x1514 or by e-mail: hay@brown.edu.

--Rosemary L. Cullen



