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Home arrow Not quite art

Not quite art
Page 2 of 4

Crumb's Despair
'Drawing Cartoons is Fun!', from Robert Crumb's Despair (Print Mint, 1969). The caveat at the end, 'It's only lines on paper, folks!', would come back to haunt Crumb when his comics were repeatedly busted in the courts.
Historically speaking, these changes have meant the revival of the entire industry, which many were predicting would die by the end of the 1970s. Our story, then, is one of the rise, fall and resurrection of the medium, and as such will include not just the star creators of the 'first wave', but also those of the second. Thus, where the first half takes in such familiar material as the manic clowning of Leo Baxendale (The Beano), the observational adventure of Frank Hampson (The Eagle), the bombastic power-plays of Jack Kirby (The Incredible Hulk) the 'clear line' mysteries of Herge (Tintin) and the underground scatology of Robert Crumb (Zap), the second concentrates on less well-known themes and names: for examples, the post-punk satire of Dan Clowes (Eightball), the gothic superheroics of Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns), the inspired lunacy of Chris Donald (Viz), the anthropomorphic dramas of Art Spiegelman (Maus) and the breakneck cyberpunk of Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira). These are the creators, among many more, who are currently providing comics with a new lease of life.
The changing industrial contexts in which these comics were produced will be explored. This includes: how the traditional children's comics were subverted in the 1960s and 1970s by the underground 'comix' movement (as in X-rated), which turned the medium on its head by adding sex, drugs and radical politics; and how, in turn, these gave way to a fan-based production system that privileged superhero stories, and which spawned a multiplicity of styles and formats, including the controversial 'graphic novel'.
We need to be clear. The book is not about making a statement that comics are "Art". Why comics have not been invited to enter the cosy world conjured up by that term is not difficult to explain. Throughout their history they have been perceived as intrinsically 'commercial', mass-produced for a lowest-common-denominator audience, and therefore automatically outside notions of artistic credibility. (By the same token, the most successful comics commercially have been those least likely to appeal to a 'sophisticated' palette.) This is why comics have been relegated by the hip art world to the status of "found objects" and 'trash icons'. It is also why comics creators have never been respected as 'artists', and have historically been left open to exploitation: not uncommonly, they remain anonymous while the characters they have created go on to become household names (everybody knows who Superman is, but how many people can name his creators?).
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