A Miss Mizzou exhibit titled “Miss Mizzou in Columbia” is now up on the MU campus inside Ellis Library. You will find the exhibit on the first floor colonnade in two standing display cases. The exhibit will be up May 1st to May 31st, 2015.

The exhibit collects several Miss Mizzou images and artifacts from MU Special Collections and Rare Books, MU University Archives, and my personal collection. The exhibit was put together by the MU Special Collections and Rare Books department, which also has an excellent Comic Art Collection. Thanks to librarian Kelli Hansen and student Amy Spencer for all their hard work on this exhibit!

You can find the two display cases indicated in gold on the map below:

Update 05-10-15: Here’s a look at the two cases:

On the first of October 2014, Mizzou Alumnus Brian Burnes came out with his book “Mizzou 175: The Remarkable Story of Missouri’s Flagship University from 1839 to 2014.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but the book has a page on Miss Mizzou inside that you can see above. It’s amazing to me that after years of obscurity the Miss Mizzou character would be mentioned in not one, but two books that came out last fall. The “Mizzou 175” book book is packed with hundreds of archival and contemporary photographs, and would be a great addition to your bookshelf if you’re a Mizzou fan.

This last week, Vox Magazine published a collection of articles under the Along Providence heading. The articles explore a lot of different aspects of Providence Road, one of the main thoroughfares in Columbia. In the printed magazine there was a sidebar on Miss Mizzou explaining the story about Caniff Boulevard I tell in my book.

This Miss Mizzou mention happened without any prompting on my part; I didn’t talk to a reporter, and neither my book or I are mentioned in the sidebar. I’m just happy to see Miss Mizzou being mentioned locally, especially with the connection to Providence Road.

I’m also happy to see an in depth feature about Providence Road in the local press. There are so many stories connected to the road, and my book only tells a small fraction of the total history. Kudos to Vox Magazine for exploring Columbia in such a unique way!

NOTE: Due to the holidays there won’t be a blog post next week, but I will be back to blogging when the new year begins.

A story about the Miss Mizzou book is in the December 2014 issue of “Inside Columbia.” You can take a look a the story online or pick up a copy at a local newsstand like The Mizzou Store or Barnes & Noble. I love how the story mentions a lot of Columbia, Missouri, comic history including Mort Walker, Ernie’s Dick Tracy drawing, Steve Gerber, and Frank Stack. Putting Miss Mizzou amongst that history was one of my goals in producing the book, so I’m happy to see the character put within this context.

One more thing about “Inside Columbia“: They are currently running their Best of Columbia 2015 nominations, and apparently somebody put me on the list as a nominee under the author category. Feel free to go to the site and vote for me if you wish. I’m not hoping to win or anything, but it is nice to be nominated.