News about the premier academic journal devoted to all aspects of cartooning and comics -- the International Journal of Comic Art (ISSN 1531-6793) published and edited by John Lent.

Friday, November 23, 2018

Exhibit review: Superheroes at the National Museum of American History

by Mike Rhode


Superheroes. Washington, DC: National Museum of American History. November 20, 2018 to September 2, 2019. http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/super-heroes
The Smithsonian museum has mounted a small, but choice, exhibit made up of some extremely surprising pieces. The terse description on their website only hints at it:
This showcase presents artifacts from the museum's collections that relate to Superheroes, including comic books, original comic art, movie and television costumes and props, and memorabilia. The display includes George Reeves's Superman costume from the Adventures of Superman TV program, which ran from 1951-1958, as well as Halle Berry's Storm costume from the 2014 film X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Of the five exhibit cases, two concentrate on comic books and original art, while the other three contain props from movies and pop culture ephemera. Surprisingly, the Black Panther costume from the Marvel movies which the museum collected this summer is not included, but as noted above they have displayed George Reeve's Superman costume (since it is in color rather than grey shades, it came from the later seasons of the television show), Halle Berry's Storm uniform, along with Captain America's shield, Wolverine's claws and Batman's cowl and a batarang. Those three cases are rounded out with the first issue of Ms. Magazine which had a Wonder Woman cover, two lunchboxes (Wonder Woman and Marvel heroes), and a Superman telephone.











courtesy of Grand Comics Database
 Surprisingly, the two cases of comic books and original art include a very wide variety of comic books including some that just recently came out such as America (Marvel) along with older issues such as Leading Comics from 1943 which featured Green Arrow among other heroes such as the Crimson Avenger and the Star-Spangled Kid. The existence of an apparently extensive comic book collection in the Smithsonian comes as a surprise to this reviewer and will need to be researched more in depth. Even more of a surprise were the four pieces of original art on display – the cover of Sensation Comics 18 (1943) with Wonder Woman drawn by H.G. Peter, a Superman comic strip (1943) signed by Siegel and Shuster, a Captain Midnight cover that the curators did not bother to track the source of (it appears to be an unused version of #7 from April 1943), and a April 27, 1945 Batman comic strip. Actually, none of the creators of any of the works are credited, although the donors are.
The small exhibit lines two sides of a hallway off the busy Constitution Avenue entrance of the Museum, but the location has the advantage of being around the corner from a Batmobile from the 1989 Batman movie that was installed earlier this year. The car may be tied into the nearby installation and branding of a Warner Bros. theater showing the latest Harry Potter spin-off movie which seems like a true waste of space in the perennially over-crowded and under –exhibited (i.e. they have literally hundreds of thousands of items worthy of display in storage), but one assumes that besides the Batmobile, the theater came with a cash donation or promise of shared revenues.

Notwithstanding that cynicism, the Batmobile and the superheroes exhibit are fun to see, although most people quickly passed them by during this reviewer's visit. Also of interest may be a bound volume of Wonder Woman comics and a reproduction of an unused idea for her original costume, around the other corner from the Batmobile in the Smithsonian Libraries exhibit gallery. The museum has recently acquired some Marston family papers.

Bruce Guthrie has an extensive series of photographs including the individual comic books at http://www.bguthriephotos.com/graphlib.nsf/keys/2018_11_22D2_SIAH_Superheroes


 











(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 23, 2018, while the exhibit is still open for viewing.)

Sunday, November 18, 2018

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.)

Friday, November 16, 2018

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)

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Professor John Lent on the differences between Chinese and Western comics

Professor John Lent on the differences between Chinese and Western comics

Elaine Reyes


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.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

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

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

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

Monday, March 12, 2018

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