Roy Lichenstein is a figure that occasionally pops up in comic book discussion. His paintings, based on reproductions of comic book panels, provide an interesting element to discussions of adapted art, homages and plagiarism.
Point
David Barsalou has created a site called Deconstructing Lichtenstein, which carefully displays reproduced Lichtenstein paintings alongside of the original comic art, it’s based upon.
There isn’t really any text to quote, the images are the basis for the deconstruction.
Counterpoint:
Dan, at Pop Snark Hooligan, discusses the flaws of this deconstruction in his post Deconstructing, Deconstructing Lichtenstein:
Excerpt:
When John Byrne draws his twentieth (or whatever) re-interpretation of the cover to Fantastic Four #1, we call it homage. When Lichtenstein re-interpreted the comics panels for his series of paintings, he called it homage too. It’s one thing to call out a comic book artist for swiping other artist’s works. Peter David has been doing this to Rob Liefeld for years. It’s quite another matter, however, to exhibit drastically altered scans of painted, stylized reproduction art next to comic book art, and call it a critical deconstruction. You might as well vilify a movie for copying the book it was based on.
It’s an interesting, sympathetic look at Lichtenstein’s work, I very much recommend reading it.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:16 pm
The problem with Lichtenstein is that he never acknowledged his sources when he did the paintings. He never said that without Jack Kirby or others that this art wouldn’t have been possible. Only comics fans knew the truth at the time. To say that what Lichtenstein did is an homage the same as comics artists do is revisionist history.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:24 pm
“You might as well vilify a movie for copying the book it was based on”
No, but I’ve seen plenty of reviews that villified movies for being bad copies of the book they were based on. Not forgetting that people who make movie adaptations usually credit the books and pay large sums of money for the rights to copy them.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:36 pm
I’ve never really considered what Lichtenstein does either a “homage” or a “swipe” in the sense that an illustrator like John Byrne or Rob Liefeld might do. His stuff is ART. The comic panels are more akin to the scene he paints, or the material he uses. He’s not commenting on the original art, he’s commenting on the society that produced and consumed it.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Oh and I really liked this one
http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/MASTERPIECE.gif
(Hot linking probably won’t work but if you go to the main page then that URL you should get it)
October 24th, 2006 at 1:30 am
Lichtenstein’s comic based pop art is a one trick pony which he kept repeating because it was successful and made money. The fact that he didn’t create his own comic panels in the style of the early decades is shameful. He gets far more critical play and commentary than he deserves. Just ignore him. Apathy kills in the long run in the art world.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:55 am
The point is that the direct comparisons show Lichtenstein wasn’t merely using comics as inspiration for his own work but was in many ways just like a blogger: linking to someone elses work and saying “this is cool”.
There’s still creative effort in the selection and reproduction but it’s much lesser than the composition of an original piece (which of course will have its influences and antecedents).