Category Archives: Original Art

Original Art: A Kat in the House

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“Too much ink has already been spilled on Herriman’s passing for white, and how the strip’s shifting perspectives and mutable characters reflect that decision. And none of it is worthwhile. Doubtless there is a relation, and I’m certain it’s too complex to be formally drawn out and distilled.” [Emphasis mine]

Harry Siegel at the New Partisan


The 16th Krazy Kat Sunday published on 6th August 1916. It has an image area of 18″ by 21.5″ and a water stain marking its lower border.

Background. I’ve been searching for a Krazy Kat Sunday for some time, and I managed to acquire this example only because none of the usual players were interested in it. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, there’s the water damage at the bottom of the page which is a minor problem in my book. The other factors are the lack of a brick gag (which I’m not particularly interested in) and the fact that the formal elements in this Sunday are not front and center.

That last point is of importance to me, but this page has other elements which make up for that deficiency. It comes from a period of great creativity for the artist, with some of the most famous episodes crafted during the space of a few years. It is the intricate inking from the early years which I am most fond of: the light touch delineating the characters, and the gentle hatching describing the illuminated night sky above the pueblo. It didn’t take long for Herriman to find his way around the large space of a Sunday page, and here we see him showcasing the wide vistas and deep perspectives so typical of the strip. Most of the major characters are represented here including Joe Stork and Ignatz’s family; all coupled with a constant movement towards the right side of the page.  The final panel is a pretty good summary of Herriman’s eternal triangle.

The Plot. Alderman Tsheez is announcing a “sad event to his constituents” who remain determinedly unimpressed if not hostile — the disappearance of Ignatz Mouse (here enjoined by the multifarious sorrow of his wife and children). A mercenary with a walking cane and ten gallon hat listens to all of this and is soon traversing the canyons and mesas of Coconino county. The reward if he succeeds is a pound of the best cheese. His cooperative guide is a “Mexican bandit” called Don Kioty; the quest which the soldier of fortune is about to undertake will take on the color of that guide’s name. The bandit points him towards the Mesa Dedo del Pie Grande which lies in the distance like a stubborn windmill; a big stub of a toe scratching the vault of the sky, and a distant cousin of the oppressive thumb which presses firmly down on Krazy in the Sunday of 2nd December 1917.

His ultimate destination is a land of humor and fear. There is a darkness on the horizon, and it is the process of enveloping the pueblo he has to visit to complete his mission.

George Herriman, so we’ve been told on numerous occassions, always wore a hat when he went out.

The better to hide the curled locks of his “mixed” heritage. A man in disguise just as his much beloved kat is in disguise in this Sunday. Krazy’s mask is a polished beard and a crumpled tail covering his/her ebon caudal appendage, now all burnished white. A cane — a comedienne’s aid — is held firmly in his hand; the tool by which she will make that connection with her desired audience both in the happy end we see on the final panel of this Sunday and the deployment of Herriman’s craft.

The mouse from whom she desires love and affection is a rascal; always mean, treacherous, and selfish in the pursuit of his own ends. The periodic beaning of the kat’s head is unambiguous to all but the love struck feline; the crowd of disgruntled onlookers in the first expansive panel is a chorus announcing the only possible diagnosis when it comes to their relationship. Offissa Pup never suspects, half in love yet always on guard; the tenacious attendant of a system of denigration — the very well from which the kat and her master derive sustenance on a daily basis.

The harsh desert glare which opens this chapter is in stark contrast to the night enveloping the pueblo on the third tier of this page. The walls of Joe Beamish’s store on the next line show a progression from watery shadows in the first instance to fuliginous night in the last, quite perceptible in the original if not on the printed sheet. The moment of confrontation is anticipated with relish by the offissa with his truncheon, and there is an evocation of tenebrosity in his words (“I’ll be made a Captain for this night’s work sure.”)

It is a forbidden place of dangerous transaction; a cage with an irresistible bait, easily resisted with the “crutch” of Herriman’s artistry and craftsmanship.

And then, that persistent dream of a safe and blissful conclusion…

…seen once again in this panel of solemn pining from 1917…

…never to be resolved even at the very end, the kat fading quietly into the arms of time and its inquisitions.

NOTE: Some images taken from the collection of Rob Stolzer.

Jaime Hernandez for Sale

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Early in 2010, The Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life and Death by Todd Hignite was published by well-known art book publisher Abrams. This monograph was beautifully designed, with page after page of original art, sketches, poster art, partially completed drawings, color guides and more. The text was incisive and sensitive. I suspect any comics artist would be thrilled to have a monograph like this one written about their work. I would love to see more books like this.

In addition to being a writer, Hignite is Consignment Director for Heritage Auctions. Heritage Auctions is an auction house based in Dallas, TX. It primarily sells work in internet auctions, although it does also have floor sales. To quote Heritage’s website, “Heritage Auction Galleries is the largest collectibles auctioneer and third largest auction house in the world. We are also the undisputed Internet leader in our field.” That field includes a lot of comics and comics art.

In the past, Heritage has been somewhat weak on alternative or underground comics. They seem to have been making an effort over the past year to correct this. There has been a good deal of high-quality underground comix artwork sold (including a lot of very expensive items by Robert Crumb), and since March of 2010, there has been more-or-less weekly sales of Jaime Hernandez pages.

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Original Art: Human Nature

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The differences between the worlds of comics and fine art would appear to be pretty obvious, but my recent reading of Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World suggests that  these differences might be less than they would appear, the great leveler in this instance being human nature.

Taking in subjects like a high end contemporary art auction, self-absorbed art students at a “Crit” session, the strange world of Artforum magazine and a trip to Takashi Murakami’s studio, the entire experience of perusing Thornton’s book was not unlike reading about the decline of civilization (Western in this case but the values are universal); a kind of journal describing that surge of decadence which sometimes marks the end of empire.

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Permanent Ink: Comic-Book and Comic-Strip Original Art as Aesthetic Object by Andrei Molotiu

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Editor’s Introduction: This is the first of what we hope will be a monthly column, “Sequential Erudition”, which will reprint academic work in the field of comics studies. The numerous discussions around the Best American Comics Criticism volume brought up how divorced the academic writing about comics is from popular writing about comics, not because of style, content, or interest, but because so much of the academic work is not easily available to the average reader (those without access to an academic library). In an attempt to help spread some of this academic work to a broader audience, this column will be reprinting works from journals and other academic venues. If you are an academic who is interested in having his/her work reprinted, please contact me, Derik Badman (email: first name dot last name at gmail dot com). Much thanks to Andrei for agreeing to have his article reprinted. -Derik.

Permanent Ink: Comic-Book and Comic-Strip Original Art as Aesthetic Object by Andrei Molotiu

[Author’s Note, 2010: I gave an early version of this article as a talk at the 2006 meeting of the College Art Association, in a session, organized by Christian Hill, on “Gallery Comics.” Expanded from that talk, the article was then published in the Fall 2007 issue of the International Journal of Comic Art, as part of a symposium on the same topic; hence the references to “gallery comics” in the first section, below. While, as a concerted movement, gallery comics seem more or less to have fizzled since, the notion of combining the comic form with the display context of the gallery wall clearly still informs the practice of many contemporary artists (or cartoonist/artist hybrids), such as Mark Staff Brandl (another participant in the session and symposium), Warren Craghead and, well, me; not to mention many other comics artists who have turned to showing their work in gallery spaces in recent years, such as Mat Brinkman or Ben Jones.

In any case, I mention this original presentation and publication context just to explain some references that might otherwise seem puzzling (Christian opened both the CAA session and the symposium with a presentation introducing the notion of gallery comic; even in the absence of his text, though, I think the definition of this new-ish artform should be pretty clear from my discussion of it); I primarily used the topic to introduce my main subject: the display on gallery and museum walls of comic art that had not originally been intended for this purpose, and how this new display context affected our appreciation of it.

The text below varies in a few minor points from the version published in 2007; in one or two instances I re-thought the wording, and I have also added, in brackets, a couple of notes expanding or correcting some of my earlier claims. -Andrei Molotiu]

While the aesthetics of comics have received increased scholarly attention over the last couple of decades, most of this attention has been paid to comics in their final, printed form, with little of it devoted to original comic art.[1] At the same time, traditional drawings experts have shied away from art that is often seen not as an end in itself but as a tool in a creative process, the end of which is the printed comic. Of course, the lowly status of “popular” culture has also played a large role in this neglect. However, original comic art deserves significantly more study from comics scholars, art historians, museum curators, and even from critics and theorists. I would like to make the case for it by emphasizing the specificity of original art as aesthetic object, and by distinguishing between the aesthetics of the printed comic and those of the actual original-art object, as collected and displayed.

Comic Art Originals as Gallery Comics

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Original Art: Love and Rockets

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Some collectors will have noticed that Jaime Hernandez has been selling his original art via Heritage Auction Galleries since March this year. The general scarcity of Jaime’s original art is such that the prices achieved so far have sometimes been quite high with this handsome page from Chester Square (Love and Rockets #41, 1993) fetching $4780:

There is, however, much pleasure to be gained even from pieces of a more modest price. The following page from Love and Rockets #47 (1995, Chester Square) for example which cost a fraction of the page above:

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Original Art: Conspicuous Consumption

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It’s been about a week since the close of the May Heritage Comics Art Auction and the dust is settling on another set of controversial results. The topic has been talked out on various list and message boards and collectors have moved on to the next spectacle. The rest of the comics world remains largely oblivious to these very insular and obsessive goings on. I present the following news brief as a kind of time capsule and, as with many such things, perhaps it will be looked upon with mirth and a sense of irony in years to come.

Two covers in particular set tongues wagging at this auction. The first was the cover art to Miracleman #15 which sold for $53,775 (with commission).

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Original Art: A Short Note on Hal Foster

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Of late, I’ve been revisiting a number of Hal Foster originals. In so doing, I’ve occasionally noted a certain resemblance between Foster’s work on Tarzan and the pencil sketches he did for John Cullen Murphy as he was handing over the reigns of Prince Valiant to his chosen successor. These sketches were never meant for public consumption but have since reached the collector’s market. Foster’s pencil drawings are like notes to an essay, a more relaxed and open conversation with his collaborator and now, with the passage of time, his readers. In some ways, a Foster Tarzan Sunday might be said to be a few steps closer to the raw ideas of the artist.

[Detail from a Hal Foster Pencil Prelim]

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