EUGENE– Some of the drawings are funny–a comic whale spouts trash. Some are frightening–a freighter floats in a skull-shaped oil spill. But all 100 cartoons from the traveling exhibit opening Wednesday, June 30, at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural History offer trenchant comments on the global ecological crisis caused by human activity.

The message of "Ecotoon: Our Endangered Planet" is as clear as the Walt Whitman quote on an exhibit caption: "This is what you should do: love the Earth and Sun and the animals."

A gallery show of 100 cartoons from North and South America and Europe, "Ecotoon: Our Endangered Planet," will run through Sunday, Sept. 19, at the museum, 1680 E. 15th Ave. on the UO campus. The museum is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, with $2 admission for adults and $1 for children 12 and under. UO students, faculty and staff and museum members are admitted free.

"Toons at Noon" on July 17 is the Natural History Museum’s Saturday Safari program for young people. The Saturday program will feature video cartoons, recycled art and other activities related to the exhibit and to local efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Cartoonist Jerry Robinson, a comics historian and one of the first Batman artists, curated "Ecotoon." The United Nations commissioned the show for the 1992 Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro, where the world’s leaders met to discuss international approaches to environmental problems.

Artists represented in the exhibit include Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News, the only woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning; Cesc (Francesc) Villa, a Catalonian whose cartoons have been published in Paris-Match, Punch, Harper’s and Esquire; and BOB (Bob Vincke), a Belgian political cartoonist and co-founder of the European Cartoonists Union, who defines humor as "watching this crazy world through serious glasses!"

The traveling exhibit’s UO stop is dedicated to the late Alice Soderwall, one of the founders of BRING Recycling and the proprietor of The Glass Station, a pioneer recycling business in Eugene. The Alice and Arnold Soderwall Endowment has enabled the museum to sponsor several environmental exhibits in the years since her death in 1994.

Throughout the summer the Museum of Natural History will combine "Ecotoon" with three-dimensional displays and demonstrations by local recycling and environmental organizations and regional companies. Included are:

• "Waste Zone," a video featuring Bill Nye, The Science Guy, from the "Waste Busters" program at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

• A kid’s corner display and coloring books on pollution in our community, sponsored by the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA).

• Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe Program–Athletic and playground surfaces re-made from old running shoes.

• Aurora Glass Foundry–Recycled glass art and products from St. Vincent de Paul in Eugene. The Museum Store features glass tiles, suncatchers, drawer pulls, candleholders and other useful items made by the foundry.

• What We Throw Away–The program staff at the museum contributed their own household throwaways to discover what Americans put in the trash–and how much trash could be avoided in the first place.

• BRING Recycling–The granddaddy of Eugene/Springfield recycling efforts tells all about composting, recycling and buying recycled, and shows "How To Waste Less and Save More," their award-winning video.

"Ecotoon" is distributed by Cartoonists & Writer’s syndicate, which represents 350 political cartoonists and graphic artists from more than 50 countries, and by Exhibit Touring Services, a program in the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences at Eastern Washington University.

The Museum of Natural History offers free parking in a new lot directly in front of the entrance on East 15th Avenue, one-half block east of Agate Street on the UO campus. Ask for a free visitors parking permit at the museum front desk.

For information about "Ecotoon," including guided group tours of the exhibit, call (541) 346-3024, visit the UO Museum of Natural History’s web site at http://natural-history.uoregon.edu or send e-mail to mnh@oregon.uoregon.edu.

Information about museum programs and exhibits also is available 24 hours a day by calling GuardLine from a TouchTone phone, 485-2000, and selecting category 3447.

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