Good grief. Charlie Brown's new home opened Sunday, and his comic-page neighbors were all there, too: from Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and Prince Valiant to Calvin and Hobbes.
The International Museum of Cartoon Art houses 160,000 works by more than 1,000 artists. The $15 million museum was conceived after the displays outgrew cramped quarters first in Greenwich, Conn., then in Rye Brook, N.Y.Its dedication Friday night drew the kings of American comics - Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, who donated $1 million to the museum, Fred Laswell ("Snuffy Smith"), Jim Davis ("Garfield"), Mort Walker ("Beetle Bailey") and others.
Walker, also the creator of "Hi and Lois," founded the museum in 1974.
"People all over the world see cartoons every day," Walker said. "Cartoons cause us all to laugh and think, grow and change, and there are few forms of art in the world that have this impact."
The collections span over 200 years of cartoon art. There is an 1897 watercolor of America's first newspaper comic strip, "The Yellow Kid," by Richard Outcault. And there are cartoons by Ben Franklin and Paul Revere that helped inspire the American Revolution.
There are also 1,000 hours of animation art, original cels, story boards, and sketches of the Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear, Donald Duck and Goofy, among others. The story boards include Walt Disney's "Plane Crazy" from 1928, featuring the first drawings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
The cartoons also include exhibits from Russia, Israel, England, Japan, Argentina, Nigeria, Norway, the Philippines, Australia and 37 other countries.