Painting 2 Post 7

So it's obviously time to talk about the elephant in the room: Lichtenstein.

Yes, Lichtenstein lifted ideas/images from comics of the time (Dick Tracy, Superman, "Romance Comics") and yes he made a few changes to them from the source material, but he didn't make NEW ones. This is my argument.

My work involves borrowing of styles from existing artists and situational premisis, but never tracing or copying any specific panel. And while my storylines are strongly researched, referential and (okay) maybe even derivative, they are wholly mine.

Lichtenstein brought to light the themes even the most mundane comics were discussing at the time: the glorification of war and the overly-feminization of the female character, and blew them up to a huge scale, and most importantly ISOLATED THEM. His works do not involve narrative continuity, only suggestion.

As much as anyone wanted (or wants, I suppose) to argue the legitimacy of his work as "fine art" he is solving his problems with one large picture and I am solving it with my words over a series of pictures. In that regard, he is much more of a traditional fine artist.

That being said, there are other illustrative fine artists. There are other cartoonist fine artists. There are other people who make screen prints and call it fine art. I am just somewhere in the sea of those with a mix of what I would hope is the more academic or conceptual points of Lichtenstein. Like him, I want to talk about themes in mass media as they reflect on global politics, but I also want to do it with a nod to the past that is both critical and respectful. I find his straight appropriation doesn't send a clear enough message of his position on that spectrum, where I hope mine does.

Leslie asked me if I had been "scarred by Peanuts." Maybe I have. Maybe we ALL have. But I still love it. And I think the best expression of that love is satire. The only question is: What happens when you satire a comedy about satire?

Painting 2 Post 6

Almost finished with the Dawson Dawg painting, just missing a bit of shading beneath the logo and some minor touch-ups.

Notice the grey on his foot in this close up. This is two layers of acrylic over a black line. It's going to take several more layers applied over several more days to correct this (as it dries, the acrylic becomes more transparent again).

This week I've also started (a bit late in the semester in my opinion) Supergods by Grant Morrison (of Watchmen fame). I'm only 30 pages in and the book has already systematically changed everything I know about every superhero. Of course the basis of mythological characters forming the most prominent super-people is common knowledge, but the specific socioeconomic situations that birthed each hero is as much a part of their origin story as how they got their powers. One of my favorite passages so far:

"Superman began as a socialist, but Batman was the ultimate capitalist hero, which may help explain his current popularity and Superman's relative loss of significance. Batman was a wish-fulfillment figure as both filthy-rich Bruce Wayne and his swashbuckling alter ego. He was a millionaire who vented his childlike fury on the criminal classes of the lowest orders. He was the defender of privilege and the hierarchy. In a world where wealth and celebrity are the measures of accomplishment, it's no surprise that the most popular superhero characters today--Batman and Iron Man--are both handsome tycoons."

If Grant Morrison wrote a book like this about Mickey Mouse, Gasoline Alley and Popeye, my entire BFA thesis would be complete.

Painting 2 Post 5

This week I went back and spent a good amount of time re-painting over with my Unbleached Titanium some small sections of the Cashews painting, which I am considering titling "And Yet You Still Seek Their Approval." Perhaps these very straight-forward names will be a counterbalance to the still-lighthearted nature of the "strips."

As it turns out, one can paint over india ink with acrylic. It just requires several layers, and often still ends up with a slight grey tinge akin to light pencil marks. Areas of note are the C and E of "Cashews" and Barry's left foot in panel 3, where a stray line was removed.

Then came the "Dawson Dawg" painting. Designed to be much more straightforward in its critique of American culture, this is the largest of the set at 1 x 2 feet. I was determined this time to include backgrounds (as you can see, drawn directly from the source material) and to "shade" (note the tree) which was significantly harder with a brush than nib or pen.

One of the stranger notes about Floyd Gottfredson's (1930's) Mickey Mouse was that when black shapes overlapped (Mickey's arms and body for example) there was no thin white line to delineate the forms. They simply meshed. This has been historically explained as the reason Mickey and his friends all wear white gloves.

Because the lines of my brush use their width variation to do much of the representation, filling in the shapes with black makes the negative "white" space the new "line." Thinking in these terms is slightly confusing until you get the hang of it. Consider the shape of Dawson's eyes in the first picture. Very round. Now in this one, after shading, the slightly angular shape of the negative space, originally negligible, becomes much more visible. Quite the nuisance.

And of course with the beauty of the Pentel Brush, it's easy to forget that you don't have an infinite source of line until your cartridge dies mid-stroke. This one cartridge has lasted through several pre-semester drawings and 2.5 paintings. That's pretty good value.

To explain the premise, I've pulled a quote from David Gerstein in his section titled "Katnippery" in Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse Collection.

"The greatest Disney comics have always appealed to adults as well as children. "Mickey Mouse Vs. Katt Nipp" is a simple cat and mouse game: cat holds territory; mouse uses tricks to put cat out of the way. Yet on another level, the story is slyly sophisticated. The grown-up significance of fights for "territory" could be found in any Depression-wracked big city; and let's not even start on the importance that Mickey and Nipp attach to their tails, which reflect prewar notions of masculinity via a crude kind of fashion consciousness."

This is the passage from which this painting, and indeed my entire premise for this series sprouted. Mickey, Superman, Maggie and Jiggs, and a slew of other 1930's creations not only find themselves in comic-violence situations, but PUT themselves there because of pride and lust for adventure. Yes, comics were designed to take people's minds off their Depression-era woes, but why of all things, would we go straight to that? America is a funny place.