A comic artist on Lichtenstein

[suspense39]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/mar/04/comic-artist-view-roy-lichtenstein

 

 

 

[suspense39]

Nothing any one here doesn't already know, but it's nice to see big press acknowledging his sources

[drdroom]

From the article:

 

"But the fact remains that Lichtenstein was simply reproducing the work of the original comic artists, without adding much. These artists – people like Jack Kirby and John Romita Senior"

 

Not quite acknowledging his sources. What panel by Kirby and what panel by Romita? Does he mean that Roth Magneto panel? Why doesn't he credit Roth? Does it not actually matter that much who drew one random comic panel?

[suspense39]

The article was very very short.....I actually posted it before I read it. I thought it would be much more in depth and was intrigued to read something about it from a comic artist.

[glendgold]

I know there's at least one other thread in which Lichtenstein's contribution is debated, beaten to death, resurrected, shot once through the heart, then its zombie comes to life and attacks the remaining CGC board members who are holed up in a prison before its head is cut off and stuck on a pike, where it gnashes its teeth and wails. So I won't get into the value of Roy L's stuff (though his kid made a terrific movie, Teeth, which you should netflix.)

 

But I think this is the panel you mean:

 

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/2010/06/19/the-image-duplicator/

 

That's Kirby, not Roth. More than one person has noted it's possible Lichtenstein was also referring to a Doom Patrol panel and I bet 30 seconds on Google will show you which one. And 30 seconds more will take you to a site showing you which panels the museum-style art came from.

 

G

[alxjhnsn]

Not, to put a finger in a festering wound, but if you want to see documented comparisons, click here.

 

It's kinda odd that this site doesn't give title, issue, and page references, but the artists are credited.

[buttock]

Interesting. I never paid attention to the themes before, but most of his war work was from airplane scenes, then a couple of GIs and a couple of Pooch. I wonder why?

[drdroom]

I know there's at least one other thread in which Lichtenstein's contribution is debated, beaten to death, resurrected, shot once through the heart, then its zombie comes to life and attacks the remaining CGC board members who are holed up in a prison before its head is cut off and stuck on a pike, where it gnashes its teeth and wails. So I won't get into the value of Roy L's stuff (though his kid made a terrific movie, Teeth, which you should netflix.)

 

But I think this is the panel you mean:

 

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/2010/06/19/the-image-duplicator/

 

That's Kirby, not Roth. More than one person has noted it's possible Lichtenstein was also referring to a Doom Patrol panel and I bet 30 seconds on Google will show you which one. And 30 seconds more will take you to a site showing you which panels the museum-style art came from.

 

G

 

My bad! For some reason I thought it was from a later issue. You were right again, it took just about 30 seconds exactly to find this page:

http://www.aiga.org/belief-in-yesterdays-an-interview-with-rian-hughes/

 

Looking at the Doom Patrol panel it looks very clear to me that the face and style (& a few words) of word balloon is from that, and only the level framing & idea of the mask is from Kirby. Sort of challenges the notion that "Lichtenstein was simply reproducing the work of the original comic artists". I wonder if the phrase "Image Duplicator" was an original joke of RL, or if there is yet a third source for this piece?

 

 

[drdroom]

Wow, the Barsalou site has added a bunch of sources since I was there last, and there is lots of Romita too, so mea culpa, I was talking out of my , drunk posting may be a factor here...

 

& props to Glen for his detailed account of the last Lichtenstein thread

[CollectingFool]

Two things:

 

1 - The Lichtensteins are painful to look at when next to the originals. The rendering is just horrendous on most of them.

 

2 - This one has to be my favorite:

 

 

I think he was trying to coin a new nickname for himself there - The IMAGE DUPLICATOR!

 

[drdroom]

Two things:

 

1 - The Lichtensteins are painful to look at when next to the originals. The rendering is just horrendous on most of them.

 

2 - This one has to be my favorite:

 

 

I think he was trying to coin a new nickname for himself there - The IMAGE DUPLICATOR!

 

I hesitate to resume the argument, so let me say that you are right, Lichtenstein's drawing is ugly, you are not wrong. Just please try to understand that this is precisely the point. Lichtenstein was NOT INTERESTED in the elegant aspects of cartooning, but in the mass produced, repetitive, assembly line aspects of comic books. When he works off a major stylist like Kubert or Caniff it becomes especially obvious that he is stripping away all the expressive aspects of the original linework in order to get the generic effect that he is after. And you are correct again, "Image Duplicator" is very much, undeniably, a self-commentary on the work he was doing. The irony is that this piece is maybe the only one with multiple sources, in other words it may be the least straightforwardly "duplicated" of the comic panel works, being a synthesis of two different panels. Intriguingly, the two panels he chose come from parallel comics: Marvel's X-men and DC's Doom Patrol were misfit superhero teams led by guys in wheelchairs that appeared on the stands almost simultaneously. The similarity was much commented on by the fandom of the day, but as I recall, it was shown to be coincidental.

[drdroom]

With respect to Premiani, so brutally swiped by Lichtenstein, I can't resist this link to Bruno's own spectacular triple swipe of Ramona Fradon on Metamorpho (the elegant panel on top is Fradon, the other three are Premiani):

 

http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/2011/10/sal-trapani-metamorpho-swipes.html

[alxjhnsn]

With respect to Premiani, so brutally swiped by Lichtenstein, I can't resist this link to Bruno's own spectacular triple swipe of Ramona Fradon on Metamorpho (the elegant panel on top is Fradon, the other three are Premiani):

 

Not Premaiani - Sal Trapani

 

Source: http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/2011/10/sal-trapani-metamorpho-swipes.html

In his comment on my first Sal Trapani post, Mark Evanier mentioned the artist's work on DC's Metamorpho containing many swipes from Ramona Fradon's earlier work on the title. The example that hit me when I then reread the series was the figure of Simon Stagg that Trapani swiped three times. The first detail here is from Fradon's cover to issue 5 (Mar-Apr/66). She stopped doing story art with issue 4, but continued with the covers, as far as I can tell, through 8. The next three details are from the stories in 11 (Mar-Apr/67) and 12 (May-June /67) and a contest page in 15 (Nov-Dec/67). The inker on the cover and story pages is Charles Paris; Trapani may have inked himself on the contest page.

[Terry Doyle]

With respect to Premiani, so brutally swiped by Lichtenstein, I can't resist this link to Bruno's own spectacular triple swipe of Ramona Fradon on Metamorpho (the elegant panel on top is Fradon, the other three are Premiani):

 

http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/2011/10/sal-trapani-metamorpho-swipes.html

 

Oops, I thought that top panel was a Jackson Pollack . . .

[drdroom]

With respect to Premiani, so brutally swiped by Lichtenstein, I can't resist this link to Bruno's own spectacular triple swipe of Ramona Fradon on Metamorpho (the elegant panel on top is Fradon, the other three are Premiani):

 

Not Premaiani - Sal Trapani

 

Source: http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/2011/10/sal-trapani-metamorpho-swipes.html

In his comment on my first Sal Trapani post, Mark Evanier mentioned the artist's work on DC's Metamorpho containing many swipes from Ramona Fradon's earlier work on the title. The example that hit me when I then reread the series was the figure of Simon Stagg that Trapani swiped three times. The first detail here is from Fradon's cover to issue 5 (Mar-Apr/66). She stopped doing story art with issue 4, but continued with the covers, as far as I can tell, through 8. The next three details are from the stories in 11 (Mar-Apr/67) and 12 (May-June /67) and a contest page in 15 (Nov-Dec/67). The inker on the cover and story pages is Charles Paris; Trapani may have inked himself on the contest page.

 

D'oh!

[Dr. Balls]

I hesitate to resume the argument, so let me say that you are right, Lichtenstein's drawing is ugly, you are not wrong. Just please try to understand that this is precisely the point. Lichtenstein was NOT INTERESTED in the elegant aspects of cartooning, but in the mass produced, repetitive, assembly line aspects of comic books. When he works off a major stylist like Kubert or Caniff it becomes especially obvious that he is stripping away all the expressive aspects of the original linework in order to get the generic effect that he is after. And you are correct again, "Image Duplicator" is very much, undeniably, a self-commentary on the work he was doing. The irony is that this piece is maybe the only one with multiple sources, in other words it may be the least straightforwardly "duplicated" of the comic panel works, being a synthesis of two different panels. Intriguingly, the two panels he chose come from parallel comics: Marvel's X-men and DC's Doom Patrol were misfit superhero teams led by guys in wheelchairs that appeared on the stands almost simultaneously. The similarity was much commented on by the fandom of the day, but as I recall, it was shown to be coincidental.

 

In his basest form, Roy Lichtenstein was never anything more than a hack ripoff artist who's only defense of his completely unethical artistic philosophy are explanations like this.

 

His art is the Snooki of the Pop Art movement - completely devoid of anything other than the publicity it's unoriginality produces. As far back as 1964, people thought it was horrible, and the Modern Art community gravitated to things of poor quality with a desire to spin it into some sort of moronlc zeitgist.

 

No offense to DrDroom - everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don't like to bring this up again either - personally, I'd love to see Roy Lichtenstein's work be erased from human memory because the only purpose it serves is to teach people it's unethical to steal someone else's art, regardless of "artistic interpretation".

[drdroom]

 

In his basest form, Roy Lichtenstein was never anything more than a hack ripoff artist who's only defense of his completely unethical artistic philosophy are explanations like this.

 

His art is the Snooki of the Pop Art movement - completely devoid of anything other than the publicity it's unoriginality produces. As far back as 1964, people thought it was horrible, and the Modern Art community gravitated to things of poor quality with a desire to spin it into some sort of moronlc zeitgist.

 

No offense to DrDroom - everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don't like to bring this up again either - personally, I'd love to see Roy Lichtenstein's work be erased from human memory because the only purpose it serves is to teach people it's unethical to steal someone else's art, regardless of "artistic interpretation".

 

No offense taken. Indeed if my explanation is an example of Lichtenstein's only defense, then I feel that I have finally nailed the argument. High Five!

[drdroom]

But if Lichtenstein is the Snooki of Pop Art, does that mean Warhol is The Situation?

[Dr. Balls]

But if Lichtenstein is the Snooki of Pop Art, does that mean Warhol is The Situation?

 

 

I think your explanation is dead on with Lich - personally and professionally, I don't like it ('it' being art or artists who rely on those kinds of explanations to justify their work - not your explanation), but it's a valid viewpoint.

 

To me, it's interesting that Warhol managed to navigate the same course but come out with a lot more fans of his work.

[drdroom]

But if Lichtenstein is the Snooki of Pop Art, does that mean Warhol is The Situation?

 

 

I think your explanation is dead on with Lich - personally and professionally, I don't like it ('it' being art or artists who rely on those kinds of explanations to justify their work - not your explanation), but it's a valid viewpoint.

 

To me, it's interesting that Warhol managed to navigate the same course but come out with a lot more fans of his work.

 

I wonder about that too. Warhol reproduced a few comic images as well as product labels and glamour photos, none of them originally designed by him, but it seems like he gets more of a pass.