In Which It is Discovered Big Al Can't Read
I am back from my trip to L.A.! While a good bit of the trip was meetings, I did make my planned trip to the Hammer Museum to see the Masters of American Comics exhibit. The museum was but a short $10 cab ride from the hotel. I was very excited to see the exhibit, and to learn a great deal about the evolution of the comic strip art form. But hark! What did I see upon my arrival? No comic exhibit, that's for certain. The exhibit begins November 20, as is stated VERY CLEARLY in the museum's online exhibition description. Which, I must admit, I read several times as I was getting directions to the museum, museum hours, etc. Obviously, I can't read, or can't make the leap from reading to comprehension; i.e., "Exhibit opens on November 20" = "Exhibit won't be open in late October."
They did have a lot of interesting comic strip books in the museum store, including the complete Peanuts, Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes, along with graphic novels by the likes of Art Spiegelman and . . . a book of Hi & Lois strips. I am quite interested to see how the museum thinks H&L fits in with the classics, but, alas, it is not to be. I am not planning a return visit to L.A.
Instead I did get a chance to see Frank Lloyd Wright's collection of Japanese prints and the permanent collection of the artworks of famed industrialist Armand Hammer. Which was nice and interesting, but . . . well not what I hoped to see.
I did learn that the L.A. Times has 2.25 pages of comic strips. The quarter page? Is at the bottom of a "Kids' Page" and included Heathcliff, Marmaduke, Family Circus, and Dennis the Menace. Brilliant! Put those kiddie strips in their own corner. Then, you can just skip them if you choose. Great idea! I say, quarantine these strips like so many H5N1 infected chickens -- prevent the spread of the comic equivalent of bird flu!
They did have a lot of interesting comic strip books in the museum store, including the complete Peanuts, Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes, along with graphic novels by the likes of Art Spiegelman and . . . a book of Hi & Lois strips. I am quite interested to see how the museum thinks H&L fits in with the classics, but, alas, it is not to be. I am not planning a return visit to L.A.
Instead I did get a chance to see Frank Lloyd Wright's collection of Japanese prints and the permanent collection of the artworks of famed industrialist Armand Hammer. Which was nice and interesting, but . . . well not what I hoped to see.
I did learn that the L.A. Times has 2.25 pages of comic strips. The quarter page? Is at the bottom of a "Kids' Page" and included Heathcliff, Marmaduke, Family Circus, and Dennis the Menace. Brilliant! Put those kiddie strips in their own corner. Then, you can just skip them if you choose. Great idea! I say, quarantine these strips like so many H5N1 infected chickens -- prevent the spread of the comic equivalent of bird flu!
posted by big al at 4:08 PM
4 Comments:
So are you going to go back in November? Quarantine them in their own corner! haha! I think the sun sentinal in FL has something like that.
So did you read/buy any of the Krazy Kat books? Because dude, I really need somebody to explain that strip to me. I noticed that older cartoonists, including Bill Watterson (or however you spell the Calvin & Hobbes guy's name) always cite Krazy Kat as one of their influences, so I got a book out of the library, and... I just DID NOT GET IT. First of all, the artwork was really hard to decipher (that might have been the book's fault, cause they were all in black and white. Was it originally a color strip?). Second of all, it was all written in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn-esc dialect, which means you had to read each line a couple times to figure out what was even being said. And third of all.... it just made no sense. As far as I could ever figure out, the plot of Krazy Kat is as so: Krazy Kat is a boy cat. Ignatz is a boy mouse. Krazy Kat is in love with Ignatz, and then Ignatz hits him with a brick! Hilarity!!
....no, seriously, it's the least I've ever understood a comic strip. And considering the current state of the "funny" pages, that's saying quite a lot.
Pure opinion here, but I think Krazy Kat is a lot like CITIZEN KANE. List after list puts CK as the #1 movie of all time. Have you ever seen it? I mean, it's pretty good and all, but #1 all time??? That flabbergasts me. Then you find out that it is #1 all time because it broke all sorts of conventions, provided a new way of making movies, and continues to influence moviemakers even until today.
I think in the same way Krazy Kat influenced comics, and its influence is so pervasive that we don't realize that a lot of what we see is KK-influenced.
B/C, Matt, I agree with you . . . I've seen/read some KK strips, and am like, huh? I didn't look at any of the books, but I did wish that I had been able to catch the exhibit.
I do have a goal of learning more about the history of the comics, even if all I ever post here is how much they stink.
Here is the wikipedia entry for Krazy Kat.
This is horribly off-topic, but when I saw it I immediately thought it was something you'd probly like, al...
Today's Garfield.
The fourth actual comic panel cracked me up. Jon doing the little wrist action thing and exclaiming, "Just super!" had me rolling. That's the most I've laughed at Garfield in a long time. Well, besides the Wienerworld one a few weeks back. Anyway, that panel coupled with the fact that he actually has a wide-brimmed flowery hat makes me think Jon's problems with women may simply be a genetic matter.
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