"Here at MOCA, we encourage our visitors to enjoy and appreciate the art on our walls BUT ONLY UNDER OUR STRICT SUPERVISI-- DON'T TOUCH THAT!"
"Here at MOCA, we encourage our visitors to enjoy and appreciate the art on our walls BUT ONLY UNDER OUR STRICT SUPERVISI-- DON'T TOUCH THAT!"
So I went to the Masters of American Comics exhibit at MOCA yesterday and--while I love the idea of comics art as high art in principle--I didn't like the MOCA execution of the idea. There was something slightly nauseating seeing comic art on stark white walls behind glass. It felt like visiting comics in prison. I should've been interacting with them via a closed-circuit phone system.
I also got in trouble...three times. Once I answered my phone to let a friend of mine who was meeting me at the exhibit know I had, indeed, arrived. Okay. That's my bad. I should've known better than to answer the phone in the exhibit itself. Ten minutes after that a different museum security person came up to me and asked me to check my bag back at the main desk. So, okay, fine. I went back to the desk and checked my bag. Fine. Whatever. Probably should've told me something as I entered, but fine. Twenty minutes later a third security person warned me to stop pointing at the exhibit. Pointing. Don't do that. Don't point at the art. We left shortly thereafter.
When one takes a piece of work out of its original context to place it in a museum setting, one must be cognizant of how this change of context will change the art itself. I can tell you that, while Will Eisner's The Spirit and anything by Jack Kirby held up under the context, most of the work suffered from the change from tangible sequential narrative to a sterile single page on a wall.
If you love your comics, people, hold them, don't frame them.
Reading:
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posted by Drew @ 1:02 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Amen (or, So Say We All).
Oh, and let me know what you think of The Authority.
So far it's not nearly as good as Ellis-Cassaday-Depuy's Planetary, but I don't think Bryan Hitch's work on Authority is on par with the work he's done on The Ultimates. Maybe it's his inker. Maybe it's the colorist. Maybe he just needed The Authority to get him to where he currently is with his style. I don't know.
For Ellis' part, it's already issue nine, and I've yet to read a compelling nemesis for the team. Once again, it's not like Planetary where every issue is stand-alone and every issue is great in its own unique way.
Then again, I've heard great things about The Authority, and Ellis' Stormwatch run took a fair amount of time to build up to its eventual climax.
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The Authority was great, for its time. Now it just feels dated. The concepts feel a bit dated as well. Perhaps thats just me. I found Ellis' run on Stormwatch/Authority satisfying when read as a whole. However, I think that Millar's run on Authority was much better in terms of writing and threat level etc.
That said, Grant Morrison. Authority. Late 2006. Yeah. I said it.
-Nick
The Ellis run on Stormwatch had its moments, but it fell a little flat as a whole. Perhaps it's just dated as you say, Nick.
Millar's run, on the other hand, is so much more entertaining than Ellis'. Millar is actually funny as opposed to Ellis' action movie one-liners cleverness. Pardon. I meant "cleverness".
I like Ellis. I do, but his stories bore me when he's not beating the shit out of his protagonists or otherwise torturing them. When he does so, however, he makes me absolutely blissful.
D
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