TOON HALL

IN March, early. Shirtsleeves. Clear skies. But not that hot, really. Only a minimal need for that noisy air conditioning, stuff. But it was work. Trust me. No really, it was.

We had been to Florida before and had sort of mixed feelings about the place. It was sunny and warm at times when Ireland was cloudy and cold, true, and it was cheapish and easyish to get to, but what was there? Golf courses, retirement haciendas, villas and communities (I remember a sign from last time. "SLOW, Old People Having Fun"), ever glades and alligators, freeways and malls, flatness and red clay.

I was there for work but before work we thought it might beta sound move to reacquaint ourselves with doing absolutely nothing on a full time basis so we went to Naples in south west Florida and checked into the Beach Hotel. They say, in America, that Miami is where your grandparents go to retire .. . and Naples is where their parents go. True enough, it was slow to the point of atrophy, and we did seem like the bright young things about town even though our main topic of conversation was mid life crises, and the whole place did seem to grind to a halt around ten o'clock every evening ... but then, so does France.

And Naples is as beautiful as it gets in Florida, wedged for 10 blocks between the Interstate and the Gulf of Mexico. Its beach is large and getting larger (they are dredging another 50 yards worth from the Gulf onto the shore) and the only noise is the purring of oversized, overpowered motor cars cruising the green grid of streets at 25 miles per hour. At sunset everyone zimmerframes to the beach, like believers waiting for a close encounter of the third kind, and sit and stare at the sun disappearing into the water in the west. It's what passes for a disco in Naples.

And then of course there are the shops ... "Quality Products Since 1994" it said over one establishment in the Old Quarter. Someone pointed out a building that has stood since the 1930s. Imagine, that old Most of the restaurants were Italian. Most restaurants in America seem to be Italian at the moment. Pasta is good for you, they discovered, so we can eat it in vast quantities at every available opportunity, in every available restaurant space, on every available street corner. Suits me.

I saw a cartoon that showed a booth marked "Florida One Hour Developing" and it was an estate agent. On our way across to the east coast we saw the gamut of Florida building. First there was the vast flat expanse of red earth newly hewn out of the ever glades. Then just down the road was the building site, and then next to it was the community around the golf course, the palm trees and the little canals (water is big in Florida, the water table is only a big shovelful of earth away) which looked as if it had been there forever, but actually only opened two weeks ago. Instant building. The friends we stayed with in Tamarac. our next destination, said that when their house was built the lawn was delivered on Tuesday and it needed cutting a couple of days later. A rubber plant that had lived happily indoors in White Plains, New York, without changing size was planted outdoors in Florida and is now threatening to dwarf the house.

AND so to work. The reason we came here. Three years ago Mort Walker, the cartoonist best known as the creator of "Beetle Bailey", announced to his friends, colleagues and acquaintances that he was moving his small cartoon museum from Connecticut to a purpose built International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida. "It'll only cost $15 million," he said and his colleagues, friends and acquaintances, being polite but, cynical cartoonists in the main, said "Great idea, Mort," and then went away, out of earshot, and said "this man is a fool".

But of course he was nobody's fool and thanks to an extraordinary amount of fund raising, hard work and sheer stubbornness the first phase of the Int. Mus. of Cart. Art opened with a gala weekend at the beginning of March. And I was invited to be part of the international bit. And since fund raising is still the number one priority for the museum we paid through the nose for the privilege. But that's the American way. And can you put a price on the chance to put on Mickey Mouse ears and get hugged by a seven foot Garfield? I think not. In Europe you get the EU to pay for such things. In America they pay for things themselves, which gives everyone a strong sense of ownership and commitment but it did lead to the reading of the interminable lists of sponsors over and over again during the three days of celebration.

Some of the main sponsors were the cartoonists themselves. As well as donating their artwork they gave actual cash. Jim Davis, the creator of Gartfield flew down from Iowa or some other freezing hell hole in his private jet to see how his million dollar donation was being spent. Charles Schulz, who has been drawing Peanuts daily for the last 40 years, wasn't up to the journey from California but he had given an equal amount. (Memo to myself in my next life draw cats and dogs instead of politicians ...)

Cartoonists flew in from Egypt, Israel, even from Ireland, to attend the opening. There was a Guatamalan cartoonist in a dinner jacket and a guy from New York wearing runners with his suit. Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm and the political cartoonist for the Dayton Daily News), the only extrovert cartoonist in captivity was on hand to hug everyone, tell everyone how great everything was, do interviews with all the television stations (he is their idea of what a cartoonist should really be like) and draw for anyone who asked. He really does let the side down. Pity he's so nice with it.

Will Eisner, the creator of "The Spirit" and the only living member of the International Museum of Cartoon Art Hall of Fame, was on hand to do the interviews Mike Peters didn't want and to chauffeur me around. Jerry Robinson (Batman) and Stan Lee (Spiderman) made up the comic book contingent. Political cartoonists, on hand to make everyone miserable by telling the world how awful the news is, included Jim Morin from Miami, Dwane Powell from Carolina and me. It is true to say that despite our jaundiced perspective on absolutely everything we were completely smitten with this enterprise. Didn't have a bad word to say about it. No material there, then.

SO far the museum has opened its ground floor, which is, of course, called the first floor. The second and third floors are built but won't be full of cartoons for a couple of years yet a few more million dollars are needed (I'm doing my best, I'm doing my best).

Judging from the public response on the opening day the museum will be a success. The kids are drawn in by the kid's stuff, and the parents are surprised to find historical cartoons, political cartoons, sports cartoons, old newspaper strips, original artwork from the early comics and a healthy wodge of cartoons from around the world. The archives which they are building through a steady bout of arm twisting already contain 150,000 pieces of original artwork some 50 or so of which are from Ireland . . . ask to see them. The exhibitions rotate frequently so they should all be shown at one time or another.

I was doing my duty, standing near the Irish section, being interviewed by the Boca Raton Weekly News Argus or some such when a largish lady looked at one of my cartoons hanging on the wall. The drawing posited that it was odd that America and Britain were so keen to see our paramilitaries destroy their weapons when Britain and America had gone to so much trouble manufacturing and selling them. "Richard," she shouted to her husband, "come and look at this". Richard came, and looked. "Gee." she said, "ain't that deeesgusting!" I felt a small glow of pride.