Review: Black and White / Thoughts in Cartoon by Mohammad Sabaaneh

by Mike Rhode

Black and White / Thoughts in Cartoon by Mohammad Sabaaneh, Washington, DC: Jerusalem Fund Gallery Al-Quds. November 17 – December 15, 2018. https://www.thejerusalemfund.org/21159/november-cartoons

Mohammad Sabaaneh is a self-taught Palestinian cartoonist, who, like all good editorial cartoonists, often finds himself in trouble with both the Israeli and the Palestinian governments. Notwithstanding the need to teach art, and the regular seizure of his artwork when he returns from travelling (and thus he says he only carries reproductions personally), Sabaaneh has been able to compile a book, White and Black: Political Cartoons from Palestine (JustWorldBooks, 2017; $20). While touring the East Coast for this publication, he stopped in Washington to introduce a small exhibit of his linocut art.

Malcolm

Linocut is a negative printing process made by using sharp tools to engrave a piece of linoleum, and then inking it, and pressing it into paper. Sabaaneh was taught the technique by World War 3 Illustrated’s Seth Tobocman in New York. He took the gravers back with him to Palestine, found linoleum from a hospital’s floors, and found a substitute for the ink that was unavailable at home, and began making art. In his artist's statement, he wrote, “When I do linocut, I feel like I am giving a gift to myself! It is so exciting when you carve the linoleum, then cover it with the ink, then press it… and just waiting to find the result. No-one around you understands what exactly you are doing. I feel that I am creating a version of myself as well as creating art. The amount of wet black ink on the paper reflects me, and reflects the world around us. My daily political cartoon is influenced by the linocut technique and I like the results. Linocut is also one of the most important techniques for producing political posters.”

The Weight of Occupation

The exhibit consists of fewer than twenty pieces hung around hallways in a small office area, some of which seemed thematically out of place such as “Malcolm” which is a portrait of the 1960s black American activist Malcolm X. Others are what one expects from a cartoonist who refuses to collaborate with those he considers occupiers, to the extent of turning down exhibits with Israeli cartoonists in Europe. “The Dictator’s Melody” in which a uniformed man conducts an orchestra as bombs fall behind them, or “The Weight of Occupation” which shows a bald man carrying a slab engraved with tanks and bombs, fit into Sabaaneh’s main concern – freedom for Palestine. However, he notes, “I think as a Palestinian cartoonist I should not rely on my topic. Yes, Palestine is one of the most important topics around the world, and that has helped me to spread my art all around the world. But as an artist I believe that my art should consist not just of a strong message, but it also should be good art.”

The Dictator’s Melody

I found the strongest pieces in the show to be two pieces, “Resisting settler colonialism everywhere” and “She carries remembered worlds,” each depicting generic Palestinian people, a man and a woman, with their bodies fading into buildings. Both evoke a strong sense of place and purpose, more so than “Can you chain a heart?”, an image of a heart wrapped in chain. The exhibit also contains a long “History of Palestine Frieze” which is about five feet long and shows a history of the occupation via cartoon figures. Sabaaneh says he plans to do more large-scale works like this, and has recently completed one on the subject of women.

She carries remembered worlds

Resisting settler colonialism everywhere

 

Can you chain a heart?

At the exhibit opening, Cartoonist Rights Network International’s Bro Russell interviewed Sabaaneh, who then also took questions. (The Fund has said that a transcript will be soon made available on their website). The audience was made up of students and people already familiar with the Palestinian cause, which Sabaaneh says actually works against him, because most of the people who come to see him at a talk or an exhibit are already convinced and do not need to argue with him or his work. For those not familiar with his work, the exhibit and the book are a good introduction to a world where political cartoonists still matter enough to be regularly threatened with more than job loss.

History of Palestine Frieze segment

(This review was written for the International Journal of Comic Art 20:2, but this version appears on both the IJOCA and ComicsDC websites on November 18, 2018, while the exhibit is still open for viewing.)

Review: Sense of Humor exhibit at National Gallery of Art

by Mike Rhode

Sense of Humor: Caricature, Satire, and the Comical from Leonardo to the Present. Jonathan Bober, Andrew W. Mellon senior curator of prints and drawings; Judith Brodie, curator and head of the department of American and modern prints and drawings; and Stacey Sell, associate curator, department of old master drawings. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. July 15, 2018 – January 6, 2019. https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2018/sense-of-humor.html

The National Gallery of Art describes its first exhibit of cartoon art thusly:

Humor may be fundamental to human experience, but its expression in painting and sculpture has been limited. Instead, prints, as the most widely distributed medium, and drawings, as the most private, have been the natural vehicles for comic content. Drawn from the National Gallery of Art's collection, Sense of Humor celebrates this incredibly rich though easily overlooked tradition through works including Renaissance caricatures, biting English satires, and20th-century comics. The exhibition includes major works by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Jacques Callot, William Hogarth, James Gillray, Francisco de Goya, and Honoré Daumier, as well as later examples by Alexander Calder, Red Grooms, Saul Steinberg, Art Spiegelman, and the Guerrilla Girls.

James Gillray, Wierd-Sisters; Ministers of Darkness; Minions of the Moon, 1791

Any exhibit on humor that covers 500 years (from 1470 through 1997), two continents and at least five countries is going to have to deal with the vagaries of what humor actually is. Even within my lifetime, what is considered permissible humor in America has changed, sometimes drastically. The exhibit was divided into three galleries – according to their press release (available at thewebsite) the first "focuses on the emergence of humorous images in prints and drawings from the 15th to 17th centuries. Satires and caricatures gained popularity during this era, poking fun at the human condition using archetypal figures from mythology and folklore. While not yet intended as caricatures of individuals, Italian works reflected the Renaissance interest in the human figure and emotion." To modern eyes, drawings of dwarves or grotesques do not really appear to be either humorous or a cartoon, but the curators make the arguments that the foundations of caricature and satirical cartooning are laid in this period. 

William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn, 1738

The second gallery begins featuring artists that most of us would consider cartoonists as it "continues with works from the 18th and 19th centuries, when certain artists dedicated themselves exclusively to comical subjects." In this room one found a good selection of the British masters Hogarth, Rowlandson, Gillray and Cruikshank, as well as Goya and Daumier (and oddly enough the painter Fragonard who drew an errant lover hiding from parents in an etching, The Armoire). This is the most interesting part of the exhibit for historians of comics, and the strong selection of etchings and drawings is worth studying since one rarely gets to see the contemporary prints, or even the original drawings such as Cruickshank's pencil and ink drawing Taking the Air in Hyde Park (1865). The release also notes, "Included in the exhibition is Daumier's Le Ventre Législatif (The Legislative Belly) (1834), a famous image that mocks the conservative members of France's Chamber of Deputies," but the exhibit does not note that the sculptures Daumier also made of the Deputies is on permanent display in another gallery of the museum -- a lost opportunity.

The final gallery "focuses on the 20th century and encompasses both the gentle fun of works by George Bellows, Alexander Calder, and Mabel Dwight and the biting satire of Hans Haacke and Rupert García. Works by professional cartoonists such as R. Crumb, George Herriman, Winsor McCay, and Art Spiegelman are presented alongside mainstream artists like Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Nutt, and Andy Warhol." Of most interest were the McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland: Climbing the Great North Pole) and Herriman (Ah-h, She Sails Like an Angel, 1921) originals, both of which are worth examining in detail. This section also showed the paucity of the NGA's collections in modern comic art. These are joined by a print by Art Spiegelman, and several Zap Comic books, recently collected and described in standard art historical terms:

Robert Crumb (artist, author), Apex Novelties (publisher)

Zap #1, 1968

28-page paperback bound volume with half-tone and offset lithograph illustrations in black and

cover in full color

sheet: 24.13 x 17.15 cm (9 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.)

open: 24.13 x 34.29 cm (9 1/2 x 13 1/2 in.)

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts

The fact that the Gallery still can not bring itself to use the word 'comic book,' the standard term as opposed to paperback bound volume, unfortunately shows that it has far to go in dealing with the twentieth century's popular culture rather than fine art. Still, the exhibit is interesting, and well-worth repeated viewings which are almost necessary to understand the material from the first four centuries of the show.

(This review was written for the International Journal of Comic Art 20:2, but this version appears on both the IJOCA and ComicsDC websites on November 16, 2018, while the exhibit is still open for viewing. For those not in DC, Bruce Guthrie has photographs of the entire exhibit at http://www.bguthriephotos.com/graphlib.nsf/keys/2018_07_29B2_NGA_Humor)

Professor John Lent on the differences between Chinese and Western comics

Elaine Reyes

CGTN America

July 19, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIBMmcjp_qc

CGTN's Elaine Reyes interviewed John Lent, a communications professor at Temple University, about the growing interest in comics in China and the global appeal of Chinese comics.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART 20:1 table of contents

The latest issue is shipping now.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART
Vol. 20, No. 1 Spring/Summer 2018

Transnational Graphic Narratives

Edited by Daniel Stein, Lukas Etter, and Michael Chaney
1
Transnational Graphic Narrative
A Special Symposium
Daniel Stein, Lukas Etter, Michael A. Chaney
4
Sound Symbolic Words in Translation
Subir Dey and Prasad Bokil
17
Misreading with the President: Re-reading the Covers of John Lewis's March
Michael A. Chaney
25
Transnational Graphic Narratives from Down Under
Astrid Boger
43
The Inventibility of Other Audiences: Thoughts on the Popular Ideology of Fiction in Transnational
Comic Books, on the Occasion of Captain Marvel #1
Stephan Packard
65
Domesticating Manga? Japanese Comics and Transnational Publishing
Casey Brienza
81
Kawaii Snow White and an Umbrella Called "Dornroschen": Manga Adaptations of Grimms' Fairy Tales
Franca Feil

98

Narratives and Identity: A Case Study on Malaysian Autobiographical Comics
Suraya Md Nasir
118
Transnational Banlieue Bande Dessinee in the 21st Century: An Introduction
Jocelyn Wright
139
Cartooning Resistance: Irony and Authentication in Zerocalcare's Kobane Calling
Johannes C. P. Schmid
153
Barbara Stok's Graphic Biography Vincent: A Transnational Campaign
Tobias J, Yu-Kiener
170
Transatlantic Exchanges and Cultural Constructs: Vertigo Comics and the British Invasion
Isabelle Licari-Guillaume
189
Alcatena's Malon: National Identity and Cultural Work in the American Comics Industry
Amadeo Gandolfo and Pablo Turnes
204
From the Post-revolutionary Mexico to the American Way of Life: Analyzing Los Superlocos by Gabriel Vargas
Laura Nallely Hernandez Nieto
229
Supa Strikas: Transnational Afropolitan Superheroes
Pfunzo Sidogi
242

Josy Ajiboye: The Reluctant Cartoonist and Social Commentaries in Postcolonial Nigeria
Ganiyu Akinloye Jimoh
255
Of Maus and Gen: Author Avatars in Nonfiction Comics
Moritz Fink
267
Political Cartoonists and Censorship in Sri Lanka
Annemari de Silva
297
Grendel's Mother in Fascist Italy: Beowulf in a Catholic Youth Publication
Susan Signe Morrison
331
"Games Are More Fun When There's No Real Point": Bizarre Sports in Comic Strips
Jeffrey O. Segrave and John A. Cosgrove
349
The Australian Political Cartoon - An Historiographical Overview
Richard Scully and Robert Phiddian
367
Reimaging South Africa's Colonial History: Jan van Riebeeck as a Vampire in the Rebirth Graphic Novel
Estelle A. Muller
384
Drawing (Dis)ability Panel by Panel: A Literature Review of (Dis)ability, Comics, and Graphic Narratives
Alexandra L. Berglund
401

Oracle of the Invisible: Rape in The Killing Joke
Christopher Maverick
418
The Clothes (Re)Maketh the Woman: Sartorial Empowerment in Contemporary Bolivian Comics
Marcela Murillo Lafuente
430
Curious His Entire Life: Remembering Tom Roberts
Charles Hatfield, Stephen R. Bissette, Brian Cremins, and Gene Kannenberg, Jr.
453
A Forgotten Link in the History of the Chinese Newspaper Political Cartoon: The Cartoon Album of The World of E-king Yen
Kin Wai Chu
470
Sobriety Blows: Whiskey, Trauma, and Coping in Netflix' "Jessica Jones"
Janis Breckenridge
489
The American Sense of Humor
M. Thomas Inge
505
Wrinkles, Furrows, and Laughter Lines: Paco Roca in Conversation at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival
Ryan Prout and Roberto Bartual
510
Visual and Verbal Representations in Mat Som: Lat and Multiculturalism
Thusha Rani Rajendra
524

Veiling and Unveiling in Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis
Julie Kaiser
538
The CRNI as an Antidote to the Perils of Cartooning: An Interview with Robert "Bro" Russell
John A. Lent
554
Ha-Flum and Other Sounds of Enjoyment: How Giongo and Gitaigo Shift from Entertainment
to Lived Experience in Insufficient Direction
Kay K. Clopton
563
"Will the Real Dr. Psycho Please Stand Up?" Finding the Origins of Wonder Woman's Golden Age Characters
Ruth McClelland-Nugent
575
Negotiating Documentation in Comics
Ofer Ashkenazi and Jakob Dittmar
587
Manga's Christian Other in Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and Suu Minazuki's Judas
Daniel D. Clark
598
The Next Generation of Comics Scholars
The Girl, the Man, and the Maus: Holocaust Narratives in Controversial Media
Lauren Elyse Chivington
615

The Printed Word
John A. Lent
649
Book Reviews
Alisia G. Chase
653
Exhibition and Media Reviews
Edited by Michael Rhode
Nick Nguyen
Lim Cheng Tju
Canan Marasligil
656
Reminiscences [Mort Walker]
680

IJOCA's former website and table of contents workaround

Our original website was squatted on and is lost to us, but you can see the contents of most of the issues at this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20171026090502/http://www.ijoca.com:80/

Future updates about the Journal will be posted here until we can clear up the situation.

Mike Rhode
Exhibitions and Media Reviews Editor

International Journal of Comic Art Vol. 19, No. 2 Fall/Winter 2017 table of contents

International Journal of Comic Art Vol. 19, No. 2 Fall/Winter 2017
Editor's Notes
John A. Lent
1
Applying the Lasso of Truth to The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson
8
Of Politics and Presidents in William Moulton Marston's Wonder Woman
Trina Robbins
46
Saudi Arabia's Role in Advancing Comics
Afra S. Alshiban
51
Re-imagining the Ku Klux Klan in Chinese Media through the 1950s
Patrick Nash
78
The Film Noir's Aesthetics in a Graphic Novel: The Case of Angelus Hostis (2012)
Wladimir Chavez Vaca
97
In the Past the Devil Has Won: Analysis of Seishi Kishimoto's Satan and Savior in 0-Parts Hunter
Robyn Johnson
124
Comics in an Unexpected Place: Mongolia
Dan Erdenebal
148
The History of Gay Male Comics in the United States from Before Stonewall to the 21st Century
Sina Shamsavari
163
Drawing Memories. The "Comics for Identity" Project in Argentina as an Ethical and Aesthetical Challenge
Pablo Turnes
202
Scalpels and Pens:
Tools of Brazilian Surgeon/Cartoonist Ronaldo Cunha Dias
John A. Lent
213
Women in Cartoons -- Liang Baibo and the Visual Representations of Women in Modern Sketch
Martina Caschera
224
By the Power of Lailies: History and Evolution of Women Characters in Bangladeshi Comics
Tahseen Salman Choudhury
253
A Tribute to Trizophrenia: Sport in Jef Mallett's Comic Strip "Frazz"
Jeffrey 0. Segrave
John A. Cosgrove
269
Wang Zimei and Sun Zhijun: Cartoonists Hidden in Chinese History
John A. Lent and Xu Ying
286
Peak TV and Anime: Why It Matters
Northrop Davis
311
Modular, Proportional, Patterning: Representation of Zhang Guangyu's Ornamental Style in His Comics
Hongyan Sun
341
History and Popular Memory. Alternative Chronicle of Mexico City in the Comics of Gabriel Vargas
Laura Nallely Hernandez Nieto
Ivan Facundo Rubinstein
357
Art and Avarice: Tracing Careers in the Indian Comics World
Jeremy Stoll
372
A Turkish Comic Strip: "Abdtilcanbaz"
Tolga Erkan
381
Pang Bangben: "This Old Man Can Do All Kinds of Art"
John A. Lent and Xu Ying
403
Major Lazer: Animation in Electronic Music as a Transmedia Resource
Citlaly Aguilar Campos
415
First Lesson of the Sea, Always Bring a Spare Pencil: Analyzing Navy Culture through Cold War Cartoons
Patrick Shank
428
Sequence Side of Cergam: A Case Study of "Kraman" by Teguh Santosa
Toni Masdiono and lwan Zahar
466
The Printed Word
John A. Lent
475
Book Reviews
John A. Lent
Janis Breckenridge
Mel Gibson
Michael Rhode
483
Exhibition and Media Reviews
Edited by Michael Rhode
493

International Journal of Comic Art 19-1 Table of Contents

International Journal of Comic Art
Vol. 19, No. 1 Spring/Summer 2017


Freedom To Cartoon: An Endangered Concept
A Symposium
Edited by John A. Lent
1
Global Infringements on the "Right to Cartoon": A Research Guide
John A. Lent
4
From Socialism to Dictatorship: Editorial Ideologies in Chilean Science Fiction and Adventure Comics
Camila Gutierrez Fuentes
71
La Figura del Presidente Salvador Allende.Caricatura Politica e Imagenes Fatldicas
Jorge Montealegre I.
87
Control over Comic Books in Spain during the Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975)
Ignacio Fernandez Sarasola
95
Early Censorship of Comics in Brazil and Spain and Their Use as an Educational Resource as an Escape
Cristiana de Almeida Fernandes, Vera Lucia dos Santos Nojima, Ana Cristina dos Santos Malfacini, and Maria da Conceicao Vinciprova Fonseca
130
Two Life Times and 15 Years: A Cuban Prisoner's Coping Through Cartoons
John A. Lent
159
American Infection: The Swedish Debate over Comic Books, 1952-1957
Ulf Jonas Bjork
177
Seduced Innocence: The Dutch Debate about Comics in the 1940s and 1950s
Rik Sanders
Translated by Melchior Deekman
190
Pioneers in Comic Art Scholarship
"Acquire the Widest Possible Comics Culture": Au Interview with Thierry Groensteen
John A. Lent
205
Pioneers in Comic Art Scholarship
The Multi-Varied, 50-Year Career of a Fan-Researcher of Comic Art
Fred Patten
219
Gutter Ghosts and Panel Phantasms: Horror, Haunting, and Metacomics
Lin Young
243
World War II in French Collective Memory: The Relevance of Alternate History Comics.
An Analysis of the Wunderwaffen Saga
Simon Desplanque
270
Genre Hybridity as the Scheme of the Comics Industry
Jaehyeon Jeong
290
On the Pastoral Imaginary of a Latin American Social Democracy: Costa Rica's El Sabanero
Hector Fernandez L'Hoeste
309
Between Fine and Comic Art. On the Arab Page: Much Connects Art and Comics in Egypt and the Wider Middle East
Jonathan Guyer
334
"Art Is My Blood": A Short Interview with Nora Abdullah, Pioneer Female Malay Comic Artist
Lim Cheng Tju
345
Comics Theory for the Ages: Text and Image Relations in Medieval Manuscripts
Jesse D. Hurlbut
353
Examining Film Engagement Through the Visual Language of Comics
R. Brad Yarhouse
384
Hemispheric Latinx Identities and Transmedial Imaginaries: A Conversation with Frederick Luis Aldama
Janis Breckenridge
405
In Search of the Missing Puzzle Pieces: A Study of Jimmy Liao's Public Art Installations in Taiwan
Hong-Chi Shiau and Hsiang-wen Hsiao
413
Far from the Maddening Crowd: Guy Delisle as Cultural Reporter
Kenan Kocak
428
Portrayal of Massacre: A Comparative Study between Works of Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Fumiyo Kono
Sara Owj
479
Toriko's Database World
Bryan Hikari Hartzheim
499
Beyond Images and Gags: Comic Rhetoric in "Luann"
Veronica Anzaldua
525
Happy Ike, The Pink Kid and the American Presence in Early British Comics
Michael Connerty
538
The Swedish Phantom: Sweden's Domestication of an American Comic Book Hero
Ulf Jonas Bjork
547
Start Spreading the News: Marvel and New York City
Barry Pearl
562
Honore Daumier: Caricature and the Conception/Reception of "Fine Art"
Jasmin Cyril
575
China's Cartooning in the War of Resistance against the Japanese Invasion
Zola Zu
586
Belgian bande dessinee and the American West
Annabelle Cone
595
The Printed Word
John A. Lent
620
Book Reviews
M. Thomas Inge
David Lewis
John A. Lent
Lim Cheng Tju
Janis Breckenridge
Benoit Crucifix
Christopher Lee Proctor II
Michael J. Dittman
Leslie Gailloud
627
Exhibition and Media Reviews
Edited by Michael Rhode
Maite Urcaregui
Pascal Lefevre
Keith Friedlander
647
Portfolio
655