Super art: The Figge celebrates comics in new exhibition
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By Katie Vaughn | Saturday, June 16, 2007 |
Superman, Dick Tracy, Krazy Kat, and Dagwood and Blondie.
Were those characters whose fictional lives you peeked into over a bowl of cereal at breakfast? Did their adventures provide a welcome escape for you in the hours after school?
Whatever the case, those characters and many more have stepped from the pages of comic books and newspapers to serve as the focus of a new exhibition at the Figge Art Museum. “Comics, Heroes and American Visual Culture” runs through Sept. 9 on the downtown Davenport museum’s third floor.
Original drawings, paintings and sketches — many of them preparatory images for comic strips — hang on bold yellow walls in this exhibition, organized by the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Images of Batman, Captain Marvel and Conan the Barbarian are shown along with those of Little Orphan Annie and Popeye.
The artwork ranges from black-and-white strips to color comic pages to detailed paintings for graphic novels. Pieces range from the 1920s to contemporary comics, Figge curator Michelle Robinson said.
Comic art has only recently become a subject of study and exhibition in the art world, she said. In general, illustrations of all kinds have been historically undervalued, she added.
“This is an area that’s getting lots more attention,” she said.
Robinson said her goal as curator of the Figge is to mix up the types of work that are shown. She wants to offer something for all visitors and anticipates comics being popular with adults who have personal connections to certain characters.
Additionally, she said, comics can be appreciated as any other art form. Comic artists have to communicate a great deal of information, she said, likening the task to an actor who must emphasize and gesture grandly so audience members in the back of a theater can understand what’s going on.
“Comic artists have to distill imagery into something that’s easily distinguishable,” he said. “There can’t be a lot of peripheral landscape.”
Visitors will be able to trace the development of comics because the exhibition is arranged by time periods, and text panels provide information on the art form’s history.
According to text panels, the first major American comic strip arrived during 1896 in the form of “The Yellow Kid,” which was part of a New York City newspaper circulation war. That led to the term yellow, or sensationalistic, journalism. But the “Golden Age” of comic strips didn’t arrive until the 1930s and ‘40s. Bright and humorous comics such as “Blondie” and “Bringing Up Father” took on domestic themes while “Little Orphan Annie” and “Dennis the Menace” featured children. Overall, the tone was warm and family- friendly, Robinson said.
At that same time, action, crime and superhero storylines found places in newspaper comic strips as well as the newly developed comic books. With them, cinematic-type effects, including close-ups and panoramic views, began to appear, according to the exhibition text panels.
Good-versus-evil themes took precedence during World War II and the Cold War, Robinson said, but escapist science fiction and westerns also became popular.
“When we were fighting the bad guys in World War II, we were fighting the bad guys in the comics,” she said.
Following U.S. congressional hearings about the “corrupting influence” of comic books on children in the 1950s, kid-friendly comics were marketed to children, and adult themes were explored in the underground and counterculture comics of the ‘60s.
The end of the 20th century saw changes in comics as well. Mainstream comics brought back weightier themes and grew adult audiences, and new formats such as the graphic novel took off, too.
Robinson said the development of comics offers a unique view of American culture throughout the 20th century.
“You can almost read the story of American history through its comics.”
Katie Vaughn can be contacted at (563) 383-2282 or kvaughn@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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