WHAT A HOOT: COMIC ART!

WHAT A HOOT: COMIC ART!*
By Richard Rubenfeld

Dr. Richard Rubenfeld is a former Professor of Fine Arts at Eastern Michigan
University. He mounted several Comic Book Art Shows while at Eastern (as well as
other art shows) which included some of the finest examples of comic art available.
This article is the introduction to his first show from 2001, What a Hoot: Comic Art!
*Please note this article is from 2001 and does not include much information about
Manga or other newer comics which may reflect a greater diversity of creators and
characters. If updated to the newest year, this article would be more fully reflective
of all comic genres and creators.
Comics are ubiquitous in today's image-saturated world, so familiar that they
are habitually taken for granted. They are perceived primarily as entertainment
for mass audiences, as disposable fantasies that are readily accessible, easily
understandable, and eminently marketable. But they are more than that.
Long identified as products of popular culture, comics gained status during
Pop Art's ascendancy in the American art world of the 1960s. A movement
appropriating the styles and images of the mass media, including comics, Pop
Art stimulated interest in popular culture and helped legitimatize work created
for mass consumption. Comics openly inspired Pop artists like Andy Warhol
and Roy Lichtenstein, who appropriated pictures and words from comics.
These artists concentrated on well-known imagery, sometimes exploiting
repetition and arranging their imagery in panels to mimic their sources, but
they worked on a larger scale and in media different from those associated
with the comics. Severely limiting or eliminating narrative in their works, they
both celebrated and exposed the myths perpetuated by the mass media.
Comics were seen as products for consumers, an affordable and always
attainable source of vicarious experiences. Pop Art also gave credence to the
collection and exhibition of original art by cartoonists and illustrators, who in
turn were often influenced by fine art. The relationship between fine art and
popular work became increasingly symbiotic and obvious in later 20th century
American art, blurring the distinctions between them. The growing awareness
that art exists on many different levels, reaching audiences in venues other than
museums and galleries, was a blow against the status quo. The real-ization that
comics could be significant art helped pave the way for the acceptance of
Outsider Art and other challenging work.

Indeed, the bold aesthetics and vernacular imagery of comics have affected
more than fine artists. Comics have been translated into many forms and
media. Some characters appearing in newspaper funnies and comic books,like
Little Orphan Annie, Batman, and The X-Men, have gained such popularitythat they
have become vernacular icons, their longevity boosted by their adaptations into
songs, theatrical productions, films, or television series. Beyond their original
appearances, characters have been kept alive through extensive merchandising.
More generally, comics have influenced the look of advertisements, corporate
logos, animated films, and video games. They have even enriched the way we
talk. Words and expressions like "goon," used by E.C. Segar in Popeye, "security
blanket," coined by Charles Schulz in Peanuts, and "Cowabunga," popularized by
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, have entered
into mainstream American vocabulary. In addition to their role in
entertainment, comics are a highly effective means of conveying information
and ideas. They have taught reading and problem solving. They have informed
audiences about topics as varied as aotomotive maintenance, fire safety, and
drug abuse. Comics have exposed readers to viewpoints that might differ from
their own. Cartoons, predating comic strips and comic books, were part of a
longstanding tradition of social commentary. Even before editorial cartoons
became regular newspaper features, the graphicwork of Francisco Goya and
Honore Daumier addressed contemporary issues satirically, employing
exaggerated, symbolic imagery in conjunction with text.
Thomas Nast's editorial cartoons, published in Harper's Weekly, introduced
symbols like the dollar sign and the Democratic Party's donkey into the
vocabulary of cartoonists. Widely read and influential in swaying public
opinion, Nast successfully exposed the corruption of New York City's
Tammany Hall, hasten- ing the downfall of Boss Tweed in 1873. The original
concepts and high level of draftsmanship displayed by such editorial cartoonists
as Art Young, Herbert L. Block (Herblock), and Jeff MacNelly, have attracted
even wider audiences thanNast did, making the editorial cartoon an enduring
form of personal expression in the mass media. Pulitzer prizes for editorial
cartoonists have been awarded since 1922. By the later 20th century, there was
also a concerted effort by other comics creators to make their works socially
relevant. In 1975, five years after he introduced Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau
won a Pulitzer Prize for his potent political commentary, addressing such issues
in his comic strip as the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the women's liberation
movement. Eschewing fantasy for real-life situations, including autobiography,
Jules Feiffer, Harvey Pekar, and Trina Robbins focused on aging, health care,

and gender roles in their comics. Art Spiegelman 's Maus, inspired by the
experiences of the artist's father during the Holocaust, won the Pulitzer Prize
for Literature in 1992.
Consciously and unconsciously, cartoonists, like all artists, reveal a great deal
about the prevalent values and attitudes of their times by what they include and
emphasize in their work, as well as by what they omit. Comics, therefore, are
cultural artifacts that yield a great deal of significant information. For better
andworse, to appeal to and be understood by a large, diverse audience, comics
sometimes feature characters that are both archetypes and stereotypes. They
are like the distorted reflections of a funhouse mirror, but are truthful in what
they reveal about their readers. According to Coulton Waugh, comics "exist
only because of many people 's enjoyment; they are entertainment. Because
people love to laugh at themselves, the strips are little mirrors that reflect their
intimate habits and feelings-and so their history constitutes an informal history
of the masses of people, of the way they talked and acted at a certain time. The
beauty of it is, you can't force people to read the comics, so that the onesthat
survive and become popular are the people's choice and mirror their feelings
with a simplicity that is perhaps not to be found in any other popular
form."
1
In addition to these roles, comics are aesthetic objects that, at their best, have
a high level of craftsmanship, are distinctive in appearance and content, and
are connected visually to developments in the fine arts world . Building upon
what already is acceptable in the medium, the best comics can be, but are not
necessarily, the most popular. The best comics transcend their precursors,
adding something new, distinctive, and personal. They challenge the reader to
think and feel. Viewing comics as a form of graphic art, M. Thomas Inge
believes that "the visual attraction is the first thing that captures our attention.

The comic artist must confront and solve the same problems of spatial relation-
ships, balance, and form that every artist must face, and nearly all modern

artistic movements have either been anticipated by or reflected in the comics." 2
Undoubtedly, there are similarities between comics and modern artworks. The
variety of subjects and styles in comics reflects the pluralism of the 20th
century arts in general. Early in the century , Winsor McCay 's exploration of
dreams in Little Nemo in Slumber/and and George Herriman 's predilection for
nonsensical relationships and ever-shifting landscapes in Krazy Kat, anticipated
Surrealism 's emphasis on irrationality and the unconscious mind. The dynamic
compositions, extreme distortions, and energized settings of Lionel Feininger

's comic strips of 1906, The Kin-Der Kids and Wee Willie Winkie, conveyed the
kind of intense moods and animation that later brought him acclaim as an
expressionist painter. Dick Tracy, created by Chester Gould in 1931, was
expressionistic in its shrill emotionalism and exaggerated style. The strip's
success reflected the media's obsession with real-life lawmen and criminals, like
Eliot Ness and Al Capone, as well as the popularity of gangster movies and
detective pulp magazines. Despite its extreme appearance and outlandish,
nightmarish villains, however, the strip consistently focused on fine details and
correct police procedures, allying it with the documentary move- ment in film
and photography at the time. Yet, similarities between comics and modern
artworks may occur for very different reasons. For example, the proliferation
of uncluttered, simply drawn comic strips at mid-century, like Peanuts and Johnny
Hart's B.C. , seemed to predict the spare aesthetics of minimalist art in the
1960s. The simplicity of the comic strips, however, was a response to the
reduction of space alotted to the comics in newspapers, not the desire to
communicate as art on the purest level possible.
The interplay between words and pictures makes comics a hybrid form of
expression with the potential of being more than just a sum of their parts.
Robert C. Harvey points out that "To look for a visual-verbal blend...is to
perform a mental trick of perception by which we focus our attention on the
visual character of the medium as well as its verbal content."3 Veteran
cartoonist Will Eisner's comments about how comic books communicate
sequentially are equally applicable to comic strips: "The format of the comic
book presents a montage of both word and image, and the reader is thus
required to exercise both visual and verbal interpretive skills. The regimens of
art...and the regimensof literature...become superimposed upon each other...ln
its most economical state, comics employ a series of repetitive images and
recognizable symbols. When these are used again and again to convey similar
ideas, they become a language-a literary form, if you will." 4For Scott McCloud,
a cartoonist who presents his theories in comic book form, what is not shown,
what exists between the panels, hasthe potential to manipulate time and space.
To achieveclosure, the reader must use imagination to bridge the gaps, filling
in what is not seen. "Within...[the] panels, we can convey information visually.
But between panels, none of our senses are required at all. Which is why all of
our senses are engaged!"5
Recognizing the roots of serially presented comics in the established traditions
of narrative art, scholars differ in how they define comics and by the

nomenclature they use. Perhaps the first to name this kind of work, Rodolphe
Topffer, a Swiss painter and author, used the term "picture story" as early as 1845
to describe his published visual narratives. The word "comics" is used most
frequently today although terms like sequential art and graphic storytelling have
gained currency. Yet "comics" is somewhat misleading because it implies humor.
Not all comics are funny. Transcending the purely visual, comics are enriched by
the inclusion of words in the form of captions, speech balloons, thought balloons,
and/or sound effects. Yet some comics are devoid of text, relying solely on
pictorial qualities to be understood. According to Lucy Shelton Caswell, "For every
norm proposed, an exception can easily be found: If comic strips are sequential
illustrated panels featuring continuing characters and including speech as part of
the drawing, what is Gary Larson's The Far Side?What about a pantomime feature
such as Otto Soglow's The Little King?"6
Because comics are sequential features that are presented over time to readers,
a single encounter with the material is not sufficient. According to Jerry
Robinson,"The comic strip is a living art form, in constant change, and the
cartoonist, his creation, and the reader grow and evolve together in continu-ous
interaction. The comic strip is meant to be experienced for a few seconds or
minutes at daily or weekly intervals. This time element is an essential ingredient.
The repetition and constant renewal provide a cumulative force of great
power."' Comic books are experienced similarly. More work is published at a
time, but it is distributed less frequently than newspaper strips. In their appeal
to a wide, varied audience that is familiar with comparable works in the print
media, comics appear less self-conscious and more user-friendly thanmany oil
paintings or bronze sculptures contemporary to them. Comics are meant to be
accessible. Those who follow them have the expectation that addi- tional material
by the same creators, featuring the same characters or kinds of situations, will
be published. Charles Schulz identified the nature of his pro- fession most
succinctly when he claimed that "A cartoonist is someone who has to draw the
same thing every day without repeating himself."8
While the claim that comics originated in the United States is clearly an
overstatement, one cannot deny the major role American publications had in
establishing the formats common in comics as well as their popularity. Comics,
in fact , are part of a tradition of narrative art that goes back to the ancient
world. While their purpose is uncertain, paintings created during the Upper
Paleolithic era in the caves of southern France and northern Spain over 10
thousand years ago, before the invention of writing, already revealed the

potential of recognizable images to tell a story. The invention of writing led to
greater specificity and a higher level of organization in narrative art. Images
were often presented in horizontal bands, called registers or panels, and
composed of figures appearing in processional form to suggest ongoing events.
Inscriptions, when presented along with the images, clarified or elaborated on
the information provided visually. In the ancient and medieval worlds, painted
or sculpted narratives composed of images and inscriptions were often situated
on the walls of palaces, religious structures, and tombs, propagandizing the
achievements of rulers or bringing to life sacred events and personages.
With the advent of the printing press in Europe during the 15th century,
multiple images became a possibility. Printed on paper, they were inexpensive,
plentiful, and portable, making them accessible to large numbers of people.
Printed broadsheets became an effective means of communicating with the
masses. Organized in registers and panels and accompanied by captions, even
prototypical speech balloons, these broadsheets illustrated contemporary
events, popular songs, or served as morality lessons for audiences that were
predominantly illiterate. During the 18th century, William Hogarth achieved
fame in England for his narrative painting cycles, such as The Rake's Progress
(1733). Exhibited in series and accompanied by inscriptions describing and
moralizing about the depicted events, these works are potent social satire.
Hogarth also produced editions of engravings based on his painting cycles,
thereby expanding his audience significantly. In 1809, another English artist,
Thomas Rowlandson, produced a lengthy illustrated tale with a regular cast,
combining pictures and words, entitled The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the
Picturesque. Its serialized publication in 1809 in Poetical Magazine anticipated the
serialized formats prevalent in 20th century comics. In addition to their other
achievements, Hogarth and Rowlandson also experimented with speech
balloons in some works. During the 19th century, books intended for children
and illustrated in cartoon styles became increasingly popular. Max and Moritz , the
story of two boys who repeatedly played malicious pranks on adults, was
among the most popular. Created by Wilhelm Busch in Germany during the
1860s, it was the prototype for The Katzenjammer Kids, one of the first
American comic strips to present its stories in panels arranged sequentially.
By the end of the 19th century comics appeared regularly in American newspa
pers and were effective in boosting sales. In 1889 Joseph Pulitzer introduced
the first color Sunday comics section in his paper, the New York World. Six years
later, the Yellow Kid debuted in that section in Richard Outcault's panel, Hogan 's
Alley, a feature that found humor in life in New York's slums. An odd looking

boy dressed only in a yellow nightshirt, its color apparently the result of an
experiment with a new fast-drying ink, the Yellow Kid became a media sensation
that increased sales significantly. According to Robert C. Harvey, "So popular
was the Yellow Kid that he became the first merchandized comic character,
appearing on buttons, cracker tins, cigarette packs, ladies' fans, anda host of
other artifacts of the age. His omnipresence could scarcely escape the notice
of young William Randolph Hearst, who was just beginning to build his
newspaper empire."9 Outcault was later hired for much more money by Hearst
to produce the feature for his paper, the New York Journal. Eventually two
successful versions of the feature were published simultaneously in therival
papers, fueling the circulation war between Pulitzer and Hearst. Pulitzer's
version was taken over by George Luks, who would later gain fame for his Ash
Can School paintings. By the turn of the century, Sunday comics like The
Katzenjammer Kids by Dirks and Happy Hooligan by Frederick Opper established
the enduring format of the American comic strip. These humorous narratives
starred recurring characters whose dialogue appeared in speech balloons. The
stories were presented sequentially in panels. In 1907 Bud Fisher's A. Mutt, later
entitled Mutt and Jeff, became the first successful daily strip. Fisher's sequential
panels were arranged laterally and had no color except black . Because many
gags centered on Mutt betting on the horses, Fisher's strip appeared initially on
the sports page. Their format gaining popularity, daily strips were eventually
featured on their own pages.
Early strips were humorous in appearance and content, focusing on stereotypi
cal characters like mischievous children, fools, henpecked husbands, and
anthropomorphic animals. Gradually, however, comic strips expanded their
subjects and styles. Strips like The Gumps, created by Sidney Smith in 1917,
and Gasoline Alley, introduced by Frank King a year later, placed the emphasis on
domestic life. Winnie Winkle, initiated by Martin Branner in 1920, and Tillie the
Toiler, created by Russ Westover in 1921, took their inspiration from women
entering the work force. By the 1930s, adventure strips gained prominence.
Comic strips like Tarzan , first drawn by Hal Foster in 1929, and Flash Gordon,
created five years later by Alex Raymond, achieved a classic balance of realism
and idealism. Debuting in 1934, Terry and the Pirates was initially illustrated by
Milton Caniff in a linear cartoon manner that soon evolved into a gritty,
impressionistic style . Caniff exploited atmospheric effects and con- trasting
lights and darks to dramatize his stories. Set in China, in exotic places Caniff
had imagined or known only through research, Terry and the Pirates became

increasingly realistic, setting the tone for other adventure strips of the period.
These strips achieved great popularity during the Depression and World War
II. Against overwhelming odds, their larger-than-life heroes battled evil
successfully in faraway and imaginary places, sending messages of hope to their
readers. The escapist pleasures offered by comic strips allowed them to flourish
during the years even though paper shortages led to a reduction of space for
them in the newspapers.
The growing popularity of comics and the desire for affordable entertainment
led to the development of the comic book in the United States at. the beginning
of the 20th century. Early American comic books were usually anthologies in
book form of popular strips, like Fisher's Mutt and Jeff and George McManus's
Bringing Up Father. Later, magazines of previously printed strips were published
as premiums and circulated for free by retailers to their customers. Famous
Funnies, published in 1934 by M.C. Gaines, was the prototype for the modern
comic book. Selling on the newsstand for 10 cents a copy, it became a bestseller
and the first comic book to be published on a monthly schedule. The following
year, National Comics introduced New Fun, a comic book composed entirely of
new material. With the publication in 1938 of the first issue of Action Comics,
the book that introduced Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster 's phenomenally popular
character, Superman , National Comics led the way for comics featuring original
material. Comic books became a sensation, some selling millions of copies on
a regular basis. The comic book industry was born. Ever seeking larger
circulations, publishers produced material for specific market groups. Many
genres were explored, among them superhero fantasies, teen humor,
romance, westerns, and science fiction. Some comics, like those based on
established Disney and Warner Brothers characters, were aimed at young
children. Others, like true crime and horror comics, were meant for older
readers.
In spite their popularity and influence, American comics at mid-century were a
mixed bag, uneven in quality and inconsistent in taste. Because there were no
restrictions on their sales to minors, comic books intended for adults became a
source of controversy. In 1948, Dr. Frederick Wertham, the senior psychiatrist of
the New York Department of Hospitals and the director of the Lafargue Clinic in
Harlem, identified crime and horror comics as a major cause of juvenile
delinquency. Wertham's book, Seduction of the Innocent, published in 1954, was
highly influential in swaying public opinion against comic books. So was the U.S.
Senate Subcommittee on the Judiciary. Led by Estes Kefauver, the

Subcommittee held hearings in Manhattan in 1954 and reached similar conclusions
about the link between violent comic books and juvenile crime. Although the

comics industry responded to the negative publicity by establishing the self-
regulatory Comics Code Authority to censor the comic books, sales dropped

considerably.
The new medium of television also had a negative impact on comics. Asreadily
available home entertainment, it offered action, spectacle, drama, and comedy.
Competing successfully for the leisure time of Americans, television hurt the
sales of newspapers and periodicals. Many newspapers folded. In addition, the
space that newspaper comics lost during the war was never recovered. Over
the years, even more space was taken away. To survive, comics were forced to
evolve. Comic creators were forced to work more simply. Continuity strips,
felling stories in daily or weekly installments, declined in popularity. Humor
strips with gags that could be understood quickly became the standard.
Despite threats to their longevity, significant comics were produced. If comics
were perceived increasingly as entertainment for children, comic strips like
Walt Kelly's Pogo and Charles Schulz's Peanuts achieved a high level of
sophistication, communicating on more than one level. EC Comics, under
attack for its horror and crime comic books, published memorable anti-war
comics like Frontline Combat and revolution ized media satire in the pages of
Mad. These comic books, edited, and sometimes written and drawn by Harvey
Kurtzman,remain a benchmark in quality for comic books today.
Since the 1960s, comics have had their ups and downs. Led by editor /writer
Stan Lee and a talented team of cartoonists that included Jack Kirby and Steve
Ditko, Marvel comic books revolutionized the industry in the 1960s. Featured in
complex stories that spanned many issues, even crossing over into other titles,
Marvel's superheroes, like the Fantastic Four and Spiderman, were endowed
with extraordinary powers, but were all too human. They spoke in a colloquial
and idiomatic way and had personal problems, making them accessible in a
way that no comic book characters had been before. By the later 1960s and
early 1970s, underground comics, featuring the works of artists like Robert
Crumb, Justin Green, and Trina Robbins, provided an alternative to comics sold
on the newsstands. Published independently, without interference from the
Comics Code Authority (CCA), they were uninhibited, experimental, and
unapologetic. Their artists and writers worked in a wide array of styles. They
explored their personal fantasies and topics that were considered taboo in the
field, including sex, drugs, and religion. Though they never achieved the

circulation of comics from the major publishers, underground comics were a
great liberating force, inspiring contemporary comics book creators like
Harvey Pekar, the Hernandez Brothers, and Daniel Clowes to explore personal
experiences and issues in their works. Mainstream comics also felt the impact
of the undergrounds. The power of the CCA was successfully challenged in
1971 when Marvel published a three-part Spiderman story about the danger of
drugswithout securing CCA approval. Although the CCA still exists, it has
loosened its standards about what is appropriate in comics. Many
contemporary comics,such as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Art
Spiegelman's Maus, areintended for adult readers and are published without
being screened by CCA. Newspaper comics regained some status in recent
years. Owing to the phenomenal popularity of such strips as Gary Trudeau's
Doonesbury and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, their creators have been
able to take long sabbaticals to renew themselves. Although Trudeau's material
is sometimes so controversial that some editors publish his strips on the
editorial page or choose to print alternative, less contentious work, he is a
respected voice in the comics field today. Refusing to allow his creation to be
print d too small or in incomplete formats, in the last years of his strip,
Watterson experimented with different styles and unusual layouts, adding a
vitality that enriched his presentations of Calvin's fantasies.
Comics remain a viable art form in the early 21st century, but they will have to
attract readers in new forms and venues. The shrinking market and rising costs
for newspapers has resulted in more advertising and fewer features, including
comics. Sold primarily in specialty stores that cater to collectors, comic books
have all but disappeared from newsstands. Although the Internet is seen by
many as the future of comics, recent events, like the failure of Stan Lee's online
comics, show that electronic comics are not infallible. On the other hand, there
are reasons to be optimistic about the future of comics. Advanced computer
technology has the potential to enrich the medium visually. Through digital
distribution, circulation problems can be solved and independent voices can be
heard. As Scott McCloud points out in Reinventing Comics, "We're about to
enter a world in which the path of selling 10 comics to selling 10 thousand
comics to selling 10 million comics is as smooth as ice. An economy in which
consumers' interests are served directly, not merely guessed at...and in which
the creator's work can rise or fall on the strength of that interest...andnot on any
other reason ever again."
1 0

Endnotes
1 Coulton Waugh, The Comics (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company ,
1947), 15.
2 M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
1990), xviii-xix.
3 Robert C. Harvey, The Art of the Funnies (Jackson: University Press of
Mississippi, 1994), 19.
4 Will Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art (Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press,
1985), 8.
5 Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Northampton, Massachusetts: Tundra
Publishing, 1993), 89.
6 Lucy Shelton Caswell, See You in the Funny Papers: American Life as
Reflected in the Newspaper Strip (Columbus: Ohio State
University Libraries, 1995), 6.
7 Jerry Robinson, The Comics : An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art (New
York: G. P. Putnam 's Sons, 1974), 9.
8 Charles Schulz quoted in Lucy Shelton Caswell, Peanuts (Columbus: Ohio
State University Libraries, 2000), 9.
9 HaNey, The Art of the Funnies, 6.
10 Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics (New York : Parado x Press , 2000) •