Discover Top Posts Tagged with #marvel comcs

MS. MARVEL (2022) Episode 2 “Crushed”

Mean Girls (2004) Dir: Mark Waters | Writer: Tina Fey

#marvel #marvel comcs #mcu #ms marvel #msmarveledit #Mean girls #The Plastics #illuminaunties #marveledit #superhero #marvelgif #meangirlsgif #mcuedit

MOMA, MO' PROBLEMS: ROY LICHTENSTEIN, AND THE ERASURE OF THE ARTIST FROM COMIC BOOK ART

Yesterday, on a large social media platform, I saw that Bill Sienkiewicz had shared a post by Neil Gaiman criticizing the Museum of Modern Art for their online description of the iconic 1963 pop-art painting "Drowning Girl," by Roy Lichtenstein.

Neil had this to say:

I'm hugely disappointed in The Museum of Modern Art. Their online description of Roy Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl doesn't actually credit Tony Abruzzo, the artist who drew the picture Lichtenstein traced for his art, only crediting the comic it was from -- and, even then, getting the comic's title wrong, as if they couldn't really be bothered.

Bill added to Neil's critique:

I stand firmly with Neil Gaiman on this.

Museums need to better inform themselves - and the public - as to the important artistic contributions of Comic strip and Comic book creators. These talents shouldn't be merely trivia answers or footnotes related to other artists' often ham-fisted appropriations.

In the comics industry, the "Lichtenstein debate" has been a pretty one-sided conversation for some time now; I first saw Lichtenstein's work in a Smithsonian gallery more than a decade ago, where I was first introduced to the controversy.

Lichenstein appropriated comic book art by cropping panels, altering them slightly, and painting blown-up versions that incorporated the texture of the mechanical dot-matrix printing process - the appropriation is a feature of the artwork itself, not hidden from the audience, but imposed upon them.

So is that... Art?

Well, sure. Of course it is.

Re-contextualizing images changes their meaning, and evokes new perspectives and themes. Appropriation is a crucial element of post-modernism, which is not only an authentic means of expression, it's also a popular vogue in mainstream culture - like sampling one song to make another, for example.

There is a bleak contrast, however, between the etiquette of appropriating music, and the etiquette of appropriating comic book art. You cannot sample a song without paying a fee, which likely includes royalties, and the original artist must be credited on the track.

That kind of etiquette was not yet established when Lichtenstein was painting in the 1960's, and, in his defense, he was very much part of a contemporary avant-guard movement. Andy Warhol famously appropriated soup in cans the year before, in 1962. It took two artists, Stanley Miller and Alton Kelly, to appropriate an Edmund Sullivan illustration for the Grateful Dead in 1966.

Lichtenstein turned his own gaze upon the comic book page, and I think that's totally valid. That being said, should the man have credited the artists from whom he appropriated the work?

Ethically: yes, absolutely, he should have credited everyone.

Thematically: no, not really, crediting the artists actually kind of hurts the work, as I understand it.

Lichtenstein's pop art suggests a sense of alienation and detachment from the artifice of modern commercialism and consumerism. Although I reject his thesis, as I understand it, Lichtenstein expects his audience to see comic books as a vapid offering of consumer culture. The cartoon melodrama and violence, upon which he chooses to focus, has been homogenized, processed, and industrialized... not at all unlike soup in a can.

To credit the comic book artists would result in a humanization of the artwork itself, and suggest a solidarity between Lichtenstein and the subjects of his hostile gaze. Not to mention, in some of the issues that Lichtenstein "deconstructed," like "All-American Men of War #89," DC Comics wasn't providing any creator credits in the first place.

So, in the world of infinite nuance, I don't begrudge Lichtenstein, the artist, for his creations, or re-creations, or however we might classify the paintings. His work, as he designed it, resonated with the intended audience, and vaulted the artist into an iconic status in the world of Fine Art... and that's where my own sense of indignation is ignited.

I said Lichtenstein's Pop Art was valid, but it's not good. He's a hack of a pony with one shitty trick.

As the context of an image changes from newsprint to canvas, so too does it change when the piece goes from an idea in a studio to a commercialized object in a gallery. The art does not exist in a vacuum. It's a reflection of our cultural values, which change overtime.

Comics, for example, are no longer considered disposable trash. They are collectors items, and cultural touchstones. They are woven into the tapestry of American art and literature.

Every institution that displays or critiques Lichtenstein's appropriative artwork, in the year 2021, should include the credits that Lichtenstein eschewed. It should be standard form for all appropriative art. When we quote an author, we credit the source; when we "quote" an artist, the same consideration is due.

Here's what that looks like in action: "Drowning Girl," Roy Lichtenstein (after Tony Abruzzo), 1963. Oil and Synthetic Polymer paint on Canvas.

It's that easy.

And yet - when a Lichtenstein painting, Masterpiece, sold for 165 million dollars in 2018, none of the journalists that covered the story bothered to credit the art on which Masterpiece was based. You won't find the credits in the painting's wikipedia entry, and googling variations on "Lichtenstein Masterpiece original source" doesn't yield any helpful results in the top hits. As of the writing of this essay, I still don't know who drew the panel from which Masterpiece was derived.

The painting sold for165 million dollars. Adjusting for inflation, that's would be 182 million dollars today, and that's terrible.

Through this lens, Lichtenstein's artwork becomes even more crass, mutated into a bloated parody of itself, a wretched monument to capitalist excess. Why is this artist, unabashed in his plagiarism, still commanding so much respect among the moneyed elite?

Returning to the social media post that kicked off this essay, I think it's worth pointing out, for the sake of devil's advocacy, that Bill Sienkiewicz and Neil Gaiman have profited immensely from their work in comic books; they are titans of the industry, and can frequently be found hobnobbing with celebrities at red carpet events, enjoying the luxuries of mainstream recognition.

At a glance, they are unsympathetic characters in the grand scheme of capitalism and exploitation of labor. Their money is in the bag, so to speak. Is this conversation, then, really about anything other than academic nuance in the discourse of fine art?

When these men criticize MOMA over the erasure of the comic book artist from comic book art, there is an obvious conflict of interest. Of course the comic book guys think that comic books are really important, but does MOMA really have any responsibility to humor these old men yelling at clouds?

Well, if I haven't convinced you yet, let's talk more about the exploitation of labor in the comic book industry.

The comic books that Lichtenstein mined for content were all produced under Work-for-Hire contracts, which nullify the creator's rights.

Marvel and DC claimed all of the copyrights and profits; to their creative teams, they offered one-time page-rates, not salaries, with no retirement plans, and no royalties. A common fate of the comic book creator was to languish in poverty and obscurity after their career came to a close. Yes, Sienkiewicz and Gaiman might have done very well, but they are among the few.

While creator compensation has improved in some areas, Work-for-Hire contracts are still standard at many publishing houses, including Marvel and DC.

In response to these poor labor conditions, in 2000, the Heroes Initiative was founded as an aid organization, by comic book creators for other comic book creators. Their goal is to provide a safety net for basic costs of life such as helping cover medical costs, utilities, and groceries.

One of their beneficiaries was Silver Age illustrator Russ Heath, the original artist behind some of Lichtenstein's war-themed appropriations. In a one-page comic from 2012, Heath humbly captures the indignation of living in poverty under the shadow of Lichtenstein's success.

Heath passed away in 2018, which was the same year that Masterpiece sold for 165 million dollars.

Ironically, despite how distasteful the Pop Art career of Roy Lichtenstein seems in retrospect, the erasure of comic book artists from comic book art has never been more culturally relevant.

The appropriation of comic books is now a multi-gazillion dollar industry; Hollywood carved up the Marvel and DC universes between Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox, and Sony, and for the last twenty years, they've been producing generic, repetitive Superhero films that frequently do not credit the original artists and writers whose stories and characters are being adapted.

A very contemporary example is the marketing campaign for the new Hawkeye TV show on Disney Plus; the poster designs are based on David Aja's iconic artwork from the Hawkeye comic book. It's instantly recognizable if you've seen his work, and yet, Aja was not credited, not consulted, and not compensated.

While Marvel legally "owns" the intellectual property they are appropriating, it is appropriation nonetheless. If a musician for Atlantic records samples another song owned by Atlantic records - they're still going to credit the song being sampled (in the liner notes, at the very least).

Lichtenstein mined the cultural expectations of his time, when comics were considered disposable, lowbrow, and vapid. He was wrong then, and he's wrong now. It took decades to chip away at this perspective, with creators like Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore, bringing widespread critical acclaim to the medium; their work opened the doors for more experimental approaches in mainstream comics, which can be found in the work in some of my favorites, like our old pals Bill Sienkiewicz and Neil Gaiman.

Comic books have demonstrated their own integrity, over and over again, and yet the medium remains forever at odds with a consumerist culture that resists the message.

It seems to me that some of these producers in Hollywood still hold similar views as Lichtenstein, when it comes to comics; while the comic book can be mined for its intellectual property, in order to turn a profit, the intellects behind that property are not worthy of consideration. They are treated as cogs in a machine that produces content.

And while the art of the comic book has taken tremendous strides to evolve and advance over the last century, I am not the first to point out that the Hollywood Superhero films they've inspired tend to capitalize on predictable themes and formulaic plots; from one movie to the next, they can feel homogenous, processed, and industrialized... not at all unlike a can of soup.

The legacy of Lichtenstein remains a stain not just on the careers of the artists from whom he plagiarized, but in the latent ideology espoused by his actual body of work; an ideology that is celebrated and maintained by the capitalists who see no value in comic book art except for the dollars they can extract. From MOMA to the MCU, the erasure of the comic book artist, from the comic book art, persists.

#moma #roy lichtenstein #pop art #comics #MCU #Bill Sienkiewicz #neil gaiman #heath russ #breadtube #marvel comcs #DC comics

Moon Knight (1980) #30

#moon knight #marc spector #jack russell #Marvel Comcs #marvel

Can someone expain to me why Ebony is alive in Strange Academy when Agatha like killed him back in the 2016 Vision series???

#marvel comcs #agatha harkness #marvel

Promotions continue to roll out at The London Eye for Disney+ new MCU tv series... The Falcon & the Winter Soldier

Start today: 19/03/2021

#marvel mcu #falcon and winter solider series #marvel #marvel comcs #the london eye