Superhero art exhibition does disservice to comic artists

I saw the opening of “My Hero” exhibition at IMAS McAllen yesterday (originally curated by the Bedford Gallery in California). I enjoyed it a lot. But it continued a long simmering problem with “fine art” exploiting “comic art” without credit.

Here’s artist Russ Heath’s desciption of what it was liked to have his work ripped off by Roy Lichtenstein, for instance.

Almost nowhere in the exhibit do you see acknowledgements of some of the original creators. (One, a lovely pastiche Captain America in the style of Norman Rockwell, includes the names of Cap’s creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, in the art.) But most don’t, even when a piece is directly referencing a specific classic image. For instance, one piece references this specific panel from The Amazing Spider-Man #50:

The piece in the exhibition is clever, and I liked it. The descriptive text accompanying the piece mentions the issue, but not the name of the original artist, John Romita, Sr.

Superhero iconography is treated as if it were created by artists lost to time, instead of people who are often still alive today, and struggling to make ends meet.

External links

Russ Heath’s Comic About Being Ripped Off By Lichtenstein
IMAS exhibits
Bedford Gallery Travelling exhibits