Curated by John Carlin and Brian Walker
Also on view at the UCLA Hammer Museum
Funny as a crutch, as Ralph Malph used to say: Most discussions of comics are drier than a Methodist wake. And with fans’ obsessive knowledge of particular faves often exaggerating their subject’s relative cultural importance, essays on the medium frequently adopt a tone that is, ironically, world-serious. This show hopes to circumvent this somber solipsism by tracing comics’ development over the century, with drawings and vintage newspaper strips by fifteen “masters” exhibited alongside comic books themselves. The catalogue offers writers as varied and talented as Pete Hamill and Jules Feiffer (on Terry and the Pirates and Popeye), not to mention the unstoppable Dave Eggers (on Chris Ware).
Travels to the Milwaukee Art Museum, Apr. 25–Aug. 20, 2006.
