[LINK] "What the %@&*! Happened to Free Speech?"
Torontoist's Mark Mann reports on Art Spiegelman's recent lecture here in Toronto on cartoons and freedom of speech.
Art Spiegelman’s reputation doesn’t do him justice. Most people will recognize his name from his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, a devastating, multi-layered account of the Holocaust. But Spiegelman produced iconic work before and after that work was published-though many people won’t have made the connections. He’s a shape-shifter, comfortable in many different styles and formats, so it’s easy to overlook the range of his accomplishments.
The retrospective of Spiegelman’s work now on at the AGO does a fine job of showcasing all the varied parts of his career, from his invention of the Garbage Pail Kids as a young graphic artist to his many memorable covers for the New Yorker later in life. But Spiegelman’s lecture “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics,” hosted by the Koffler Center of the Arts at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on January 26, dealt with an equally relevant aspect of his life’s work: namely, his advocacy for free speech in an age when cartoonists are being gunned down at their desks.
The talk began with a short introduction to the essence of the comic-book style, exemplified by the redacted expletive in the title: little abstract symbols that take on meaning because we invest them with meaning. Spiegelman asserts that comics are a “co-mix” of art and commerce-which seems like a coded way of saying that comics aren’t as pretentious as fine art (what art isn’t mixed with commerce?). The AGO exhibit is preoccupied with this aspect of his work, and the way he uses comics to blend high and low art.
But the most important thing about comics, in Spiegelman’s formulation, is that they get straight into the brain, moving faster than we can think about them. Comics are so condensed that we can understand them instantly, the way a baby recognizes the symbol of a smiley face before it can distinguish even its own mother’s face. And therein lies their power-and their threat.
Woven in with his broader history of the medium was Spiegelman’s story of his own love affair with comics. He described how he taught himself to read while trying to figure out if Batman was good or bad (“Maybe if I understand these words, I’ll find out,” he said), how he learned about sex from contemplating Betty and Veronica, and how he discovered philosophy from Peanuts. Most important to his development, though, was Mad Magazine, which he says taught him about ethics, aesthetics, and everything else.
Art Spiegelman’s reputation doesn’t do him justice. Most people will recognize his name from his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, a devastating, multi-layered account of the Holocaust. But Spiegelman produced iconic work before and after that work was published-though many people won’t have made the connections. He’s a shape-shifter, comfortable in many different styles and formats, so it’s easy to overlook the range of his accomplishments.
The retrospective of Spiegelman’s work now on at the AGO does a fine job of showcasing all the varied parts of his career, from his invention of the Garbage Pail Kids as a young graphic artist to his many memorable covers for the New Yorker later in life. But Spiegelman’s lecture “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics,” hosted by the Koffler Center of the Arts at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on January 26, dealt with an equally relevant aspect of his life’s work: namely, his advocacy for free speech in an age when cartoonists are being gunned down at their desks.
The talk began with a short introduction to the essence of the comic-book style, exemplified by the redacted expletive in the title: little abstract symbols that take on meaning because we invest them with meaning. Spiegelman asserts that comics are a “co-mix” of art and commerce-which seems like a coded way of saying that comics aren’t as pretentious as fine art (what art isn’t mixed with commerce?). The AGO exhibit is preoccupied with this aspect of his work, and the way he uses comics to blend high and low art.
But the most important thing about comics, in Spiegelman’s formulation, is that they get straight into the brain, moving faster than we can think about them. Comics are so condensed that we can understand them instantly, the way a baby recognizes the symbol of a smiley face before it can distinguish even its own mother’s face. And therein lies their power-and their threat.
Woven in with his broader history of the medium was Spiegelman’s story of his own love affair with comics. He described how he taught himself to read while trying to figure out if Batman was good or bad (“Maybe if I understand these words, I’ll find out,” he said), how he learned about sex from contemplating Betty and Veronica, and how he discovered philosophy from Peanuts. Most important to his development, though, was Mad Magazine, which he says taught him about ethics, aesthetics, and everything else.