FROM THE ARCHIVES
TWO brand new, still sealed copies – ONE LEFT!
This is the mammoth catalogue (it weighs over 2 kilos -- almost 5 pounds) for the first ever major retrospective on American Comics organized by a major American museum, or, in this case, museums -- the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hammer Museum, both located in Los Angeles. This beautifully produced book published by Yale University Press covers the entire twentieth century -- the century of comics. Starting off with Winsor McKay who defined the terms of American comics, the survey continues through George Herriman, Frank King, Milton Canniff, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and concludes with Chris Ware, with many side trips covering their contemporaries*. The central text is a 175-page essay by editor John Carlin, which is a general history of American comics that focuses on the artists represented in the exhibition. It is followed by a series of short essays on individual artists by the likes of Stanley Crouch, Tom DeHaven, Jules Feiffer, Matt Groening, Patrick McDonnell and Raymond Pettibone. The volume is, of course, heavily illustrated in both black and white and full color and features many examples of both original art and the comics as they appeared in printed form. The reproductions are uniformly excellent, with perhaps one or two exceptions out of the hundreds presented. At last, The Establishment is beginning to "get it." They're only just starting to grasp the whole comics thing, but this is a rewarding initial effort that we certainly hope will open the door to further cultural exchanges between the world of comics and the world of fine art. To learn more visit the Hammer Museum's site. Here's the first of five pages of examples from the show. *(Although there are some truly glaring absences: Carl Barks and Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez coming first to mind. To look on the bright side, these absences practically insure a curatorial rebuttal by another institution at some point in the future.)
