“The thing that made me connect with this was the footnotes. He (Backderf) says it’s all in the footnotes,” said Alison Caplan, director of the May 4 Visitors Center.
“Graphic Content: Comics of May 4” is a new exhibition inside Kent State University’s May 4 Visitors Center. It opened on March 20 with a dialogue by artist and Kent State alumnus Chuck Ayers.
Work by Ayers, along with art by Derf Backderf, Katherine Wirick and other artists is featured in the exhibit. Ayers was a student at Kent State on May 4, 1970, and his illustrations, which were published in the Daily Kent Stater and the Akron Beacon Journal come from his experiences on campus. He is the co-creator of the popular comic strip “Crankshaft.”
Backderf worked as a cartoonist for the Ohio State Lantern, The Evening Times in Palm Beach, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Akron Beacon Journal. He is known for his graphic novels, which include “My Friend Dahmer” and “Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio.”
Wirick teaches painting and drawing in Los Angeles. Her father was a Kent State student who sat next to Bill Schroeder while taking an ROTC exam, just hours before Schroder was killed on May 4, 1970. Her illustrations are inspired by her father’s memories and her memories of her father.
‘We’re Kind of Representing Different Generations of Cartoonists and Their Take on May 4’
Caplan said that the footnotes in Backderf’s work show all the research he did in preparing his graphic novel about Kent State and it’s what inspired her to create this exhibition. Backderf came to the Kent Campus and gathered information from the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives and the May 4 Archive. He listened to oral histories and interviewed witnesses to build his story. “The idea was ‘How do we show this process?’” said Caplan. “And we’ve been lucky enough to have Derf loan us some original artworks. So, in the exhibition, you’ll get to see his working process, how a graphic novel is made.”
While Backderf wasn’t on campus on May 4, 1970, Chuck Ayers was a Kent State student on that day, working for the Daily Kent Stater. “He got his start here at Kent,” said Caplan. “He illustrated for the Akron Beacon Journal and he spent part of his career reevaluating May 4 through these stories. He is constantly dealing with the experience of May 4 and dealing with the trauma of having experienced it on campus through his drawings and through his cartoons.”
One of the artifacts featured in the exhibition is a drawing that Ayers considers to be his first political cartoon. It ran in the New York Times and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. “We’re going to show all sorts of discourse around it,” said Caplan. “There was even an op-ed, from a woman who was complaining that Chuck Ayers was inciting students to riot by his comic.”
Wirick’s connection to May 4 is through her father, who was in ROTC classes with Bill Schroeder, one of the four students who was killed on May 4, 1970. Her father joined the military after Kent State and was exposed to chemicals that caused him to develop a deadly cancer. “She was creating this work, telling this story, talking about May 4, processing her experience as a child growing up with the shadow of May 4 to her dad’s death,” said Caplan. (Wirick's father passed away shortly after she finished this project.) “So, it is also a story of the events, but though the very personal process of grief and being the daughter of someone who was there.”
Exhibition Is on Display From March 12 to June 7
Caplan invites everyone to come to the May 4 Visitors Center, located on the ground floor of Taylor Hall, and see what unique component each artist contributes to this emotionally stirring exhibition. In addition to art by Ayers, Backderf and Wirick, displays at the exhibition also include May 4-related expressions created by a number of other artists.
Talk by Derf Backderf - Thursday, April 11 at 5:30 PM
The May 4 Visitors Center will host a discussion by Derf Backderf, author and illustrator of the acclaimed graphic novel “Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio,” on Thursday, April 11 at 5:30 p.m. at 147 Taylor Hall, Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. This event is free and open to the public; however, registration is encouraged. Follow this link to register.