Beetle Bailey in the Big City

For one week last year, I was a self-employed New Yorker. I busted my hump over a 60-hour New York-style workweek, selling flip flops to Republican National Convention delegates.

I didn't really "make it" there (and, for a long time, I couldn't make it anywhere), but I went to there work. As a result, I never really got to be a tourist in the Big Apple.

Sure I saw Times Square, but I had to sell flip flops the next morning. I never even made it to Ground Zero or the Statue of Liberty.

And then, on the short day when Derek and I sold our last pair of flip flops, I talked him into indulging me the one touristy thing I wanted to see: the Empire State Building.

At the time, I was reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two kids who make it big in the funny book business in 1940s New York.

Kavalier and Clay's publisher, Empire Comics, moved its office into the Empire State Building once their book, The Escapist, took off. The building was an amazing symbol throughout the book. A dazzling picture of the building even graced the paperback's cover.

Needless to say, I was excited to see the building.

Derek and I braved a long line through hot, sticky hallways to get to the top, where we paid extra for the guided audio tour, recited by an authentic-sounding New York cabbie over little headsets they gave us. And wow.

Tony the cabbie, with the help of my amazing view of Manhattan, transformed me from a lost and confused outsider to a guy who new what was what. I felt in tune with the history and geography of the city, and New York seemed vibrant and friendly. Definitely worth the wait and the extra money.

But there's a new reason to check out the Empire State Building.

The New York Times reports that the Empire State Building will soon house the National Cartoon Museum, paying homage to the days chronicled by Chabon in Kavalier & Clay, days when the building was home to Timely Comics (now Marvel).

The Times reports:

The museum, to open in the fall of 2006, will contain 200,000 original cartoons from more than 50 countries as well as 10,000 books and 1,000 hours of animation, worth about $20 million. The displays will range over eight genres, including newspaper comic strips, comic books, graphic novels and memoirs like Art Spiegelman's "Maus," animation, political cartoons, international cartoons and illustration and advertising.

There will also be many special displays and programs meant to educate or amuse, including a 15-foot plaster head of Walt Disney showing all the characters in his brain and a timeline tracing cartoons back to the cave dwellers.

Moving the museum to the Empire State building from its old home in Boca Raton, Fla., signifies that America is accepting cartoons and graphic novels as legitimate media.

Gone are times like the 70s, when religious groups created a massive backlash against comic books, and the 90s, when Marvel filed for bankruptcy.

Now, thanks to Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker, we'll be able to celebrate cartoons properly. I'll have to go back to New York next year, only this time as a tourist.