Category: Cartooning

It’s a man’s life in the Army

There were two magazines that started in the 1950’s that became nothing less than social forces in the 60’s — Mad and Playboy. They held equal fascination for boys, but Playboy had an age limit, and for some boys even Mad wasn’t allowed in the house. The lucky ones had friends who bought Mad, with older brothers who could get Playboy.

Playboy’s cultural impact was pervasive in the Sixties, particularly in the James Bond films. Even the comics weren’t immune from its influence. Mort Walker has been accused of treating women as sex objects in Beetle Bailey, and I would cite this strip, from June 6, 1965, as an example of how Walker pushed the limit of syndicated comic strip censorship. I’m surprised the characters do more than just walk on the beach, because as depicted the scenario borders on being akin to a Playboy cartoon.


© King Features Syndicate

OHHH… ALRIGHT… $42 million, and that’s my final offer

Yesterday, Christie’s auctioned a Roy Lichtenstein painting for $42,642,500. The painting is “OHHH… ALRIGHT…”, from 1964. I had to smile (maybe it was more of a smirk) when I read this in the catalog listing.

The seamless surface of Ohhh…Alright… may look as if it was rolled off a printing press in a matter of seconds, but it is actually the product of a long, painstaking procedure. Lichtenstein chose the original illustration from the DC comic book Secret Hearts, which Lichtenstein has made his own by subtly manipulating its content.

Attributing the source material that Lichtenstein used is undoubtedly thanks to the diligent research of David Barsalou, whose Deconstructing Lichtenstein project reveals what’s really behind Roy’s “monumental iconography.”

“Barsalou is boring to us,” comments Jack Cowart, executive director of the Lichtenstein Foundation. He contests the notion that Lichtenstein was a mere copyist: “Roy’s work was a wonderment of the graphic formulae and the codification of sentiment that had been worked out by others. Barsalou’s thesis notwithstanding, the panels were changed in scale, color, treatment, and in their implications. There is no exact copy.”

OH... ALRIGHT !... DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000 DAVID BARSALOU

Nonsense. I don’t deny that Lichtenstein had his own style, but “OH… ALRIGHT…” was copied from a panel in a DC romance comic-book that was drawn by Bernard Sachs, and Barsalou is the only reason why Christie’s acknowledges that. If Art is supposed to be about Truth, Deconstructing Lichtenstein is an essential resource.

The best, and most evocative, use of Lichtenstein’s work I have seen in another medium is by our own Miss Lia Pamina, featuring Margo Guryan’s sublime “Love Songs”.

The Beeb on Sparky

It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years since the controversial biography Schulz and Peanuts, by David Michaelis. You have until next Tuesday to listen to a BBC Radio 4 feature on Charles M. Schulz.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/vrvdm/

I’m a bit surprised to hear Jeannie say, “David did a marvelous job…” Russell T. Davies, who brought Doctor Who back from hiatus, chimes in with the factoid that long before the Tardis, Snoopy’s doghouse was much bigger inside than it appeared outside.