{"id":734,"date":"2007-06-20T13:04:17","date_gmt":"2007-06-20T17:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=734"},"modified":"2007-06-20T16:10:14","modified_gmt":"2007-06-20T20:10:14","slug":"masters-exhibit-fallout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=734","title":{"rendered":"“Masters” Exhibit Fallout"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, comics enthusiasts and practitioners have been complaining, Rodney Dangerfield-style that the art form doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Among the many standard grouse formats is the “museum grouse,” which goes a little like this: “Museums will put some Roy Lichtenstein riff on a Kirby panel on the wall and everyone goes apeshit for it, but why won’t they put the actual Kirby stuff on display?!”<\/p>\n

Well, guess what–“they” finally did, most notably in the recent high-profile Masters of American Comics<\/a> exhibit. And what was the reaction of the comics community?<\/p>\n

Bitching and complaining.<\/p>\n

I was just checking out the contents of the new, and very cool, comics magazine, Comics Comics<\/a><\/em>, and noted that in it, “Dan [Nadel] has some bones to pick with the Masters of American Comics show.” I’m guessing this won’t be a glowing review.<\/p>\n

Last week, I received the most recent issue of The International Journal of Comic Art<\/em>, which contained what was apparently intended to be a point\/counterpoint sort of thing, but since both reviewers didn’t like the exhibit it was really just “counterpoint\/counterpoint.”<\/p>\n

The Comics Journal<\/em>‘s R.C. Harvey hasn’t quite weighed in fully as of issue 282’s introductory essay, but we’ll see what the second half brings when #283 arrives. (I get my issues along with my monthly comics, so I’m guessing everyone probably has gotten this issue but me.)<\/p>\n

Folks more on the P.C. tip complained about the lack of women in the exhibit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who helped put the exhibit together, and was himself included in it, eventually found fault with it and withdrew his work from it.<\/p>\n

I remember discussing this exhibit with a prominent comics scholar at last year’s SPX who was, needless to say, kvetching about it, and asking him what he<\/em> would have included to make for a better show. His advice for the Masters of American<\/strong> Comics exhibit, only half-jokingly: all European cartoonists. Quoth Charlie Brown: Good grief!<\/p>\n

So, what’s the point of my grousing about all this grousing? I’m not exactly sure–certainly not that a major exhibit of comics art should be above reproach simply because it’s… well, a major exhibit of comics art. But I do wonder, though, if we of the comics community might heed a bit of old Southern wisdom regarding the longterm and sustained progress of our art form into the realm of “respectable” art: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Although, as the character Woody once remarked on Cheers<\/em>, you can catch the most flies with a dead squirrel.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For decades, comics enthusiasts and practitioners have been complaining, Rodney Dangerfield-style that the art form doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Among the many standard grouse formats is the “museum grouse,” which goes a little like this: “Museums will put some Roy Lichtenstein riff on a Kirby panel on the wall and everyone goes apeshit … <\/p>\n

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