[1] The permanent collection features some 7,000 pieces as of 2015, including original animation cels, comic book pages and sculptures.

[2] Until September 2015, the museum was located in the Yerba Buena Gardens cultural district of San Francisco, in the South of Market neighborhood.

The Museum was founded in 1984 by comic art enthusiasts,[3] with its primary founder being Malcolm Whyte,[2][4] the publisher of Troubador Press.

In 1987, with the help of an endowment from cartoonist Charles Schulz, it established a home on the second floor of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin Building in the South of Market (SoMa) area.

In 2001, the museum moved to a ground-floor location at 655 Mission Street in SoMa, which had been vacated by the Friends of Photography Ansel Adams Center[citation needed].