SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL                  (MAGAZINE)

INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF CARTOON ART            Page 3

The International Museum of Cartoon Art, which broke ground last month in Boca Raton's Mizner Park, will soon be making a bid for South Florida's corporate pockets.

Although its board includes such heavy hitters as Sensormatic chairman Ronald Assaf, Office Depot chairman David Fuente and IBM vice president John Hannifan, most of the museum's seed money has come from national newspaper foundations, feature syndicates, private donors and successful cartoonists.

As the museum's January 1996 opening draws closer, supporters are hoping that will change.
"We've been going after the industry gifts, the $1 million lead gifts," said museum founder Mort Walker, creator of the Beetle Bailey comic strip. "Now we're going to go after the South Florida gifts."

When completed, the $15 million museum will house the largest collection of cartoon and comic strip art in the world - an eclectic array of editorial cartoons, caricatures, comic strips and comic books, magazine and book illustrations, advertising art, greeting cards and animated films.

Even now, as the 130,000-piece collection lies in storage waiting its new home, the museum's cache continues to grow: Last week, a Maryland man donated the earliest known drawings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
 
Nearly $5 million already has been raised to open the museum's first floor, which will include exhibit halls, a library, a gift shop, a cafe, an outdoor sculpture garden and administrative offices.

Another $10 million is needed for Phase II, which will include an additional floor of exhibit space as well as interactive video displays, an education wing, a 250-seat animation theater, and an outdoor glockenspiel tower featuring mechanical cartoon characters that pop out and perform a little routine every hour.

Plans also are in the works for the museum to host animation festivals, cartoonists' conventions and other special events, and to promote it all with an international public relations campaign.

Some 1 million visitors are expected each year - a projection that has not gone unnoticed by the state of Florida, which tentatively has approved a construction grant of $500,000.

"We'll be spending money to attract people from all over the world," said development director Fritz Jellinghaus. "Next to Walt Disney, we could become a major tourist attraction in this state."

The new building will be a far cry from the original cartoon museum, which opened in 1974 at a rented house in Greenwich, Conn. Backed by a $100,000 grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the museum initially focused on cartoons and comic strips from Walker's private collection.

The museum later moved to a historic castle in Rye Brook, N.Y., where it remained until the expanding collection demanded more space.

In 1990, when Walker spread the word that he was looking for a new site, Boca Raton was one of several communities to come courting. But it was the city's offer of 1 1/2 acres at Mizner Park - with a 100-year lease at $1 a year - that won the cartoonist's heart.

"We looked around in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, and we just couldn't seem to find the right place," said Walker, who has since moved to Boca Raton.

"When I first saw Mizner Park," Walker said, "I fell in love with it. I said, 'This is where we ought to be.' We are, after all, a commercial art - so there's no shame in being in a commercial area."

The new museum has found widespread support in the newspaper and cartoon industry; Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts empire, is the largest donor so far with a gift of $1 million.

A number of Schulz's contemporaries - including Jim Davis of Garfield, Bil Keane of Family Circus, Johnny Hart of Wizard of Id and editorial cartoonist Mike Peters - have pledged gifts ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 each.

In addition, major corporate donors in South Florida have included the Knight Foundation ($250,000), SunBank/South Florida ($250,000) and Blockbuster Entertainment ($50,000).
Still, Jellinghaus said, the museum has yet to really tap corporate coffers.

"For corporations that have traditionally been supporters of the fine arts, this may not be their cup of tea," he said. "But you never know - you might find some CEO you never thought of going to, who just happens to love the comics or animation."

Observers say Jellinghaus' job should get easier now that construction of the museum has begun. "I think this is going to be a major boost to the area, and I think it's going to surprise some people who don't understand what this really means," said Jorge Camejo, executive director of the Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency. "As people begin to see this building coming off the ground and to understand the benefits it represents for this community, I think they will start jumping on the bandwagon." 

Will Ray, president of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, said some corporations may be eager to support a cultural institution that has broader appeal than the ballet or the symphony.

"Cartoonists are such celebrities that corporate executives will want to rub elbows with them," he said. "And they've got the best board in town; if anybody can (raise this money), they will."
But Walker said he has no illusions that corporate fund-raising will come easy.

"Everyone has to be educated," he said. "The idea of a cartoon museum is not a familiar one, even though Mickey Mouse is the best-known personage in the world. Cartoons are so accessible to everybody, so easily understood, that people just take them for granted, like the air or the sunshine."