I guess I'll put up with discussions of which Green Lantern is toughest if it means more of this (though that causality is kind of questionable)

You guys know about Leif Peng's Today's Inspiration, right? Blog devoted to illustration art, mostly from the middle part of the 20th century? Eddie Campbell is a fan, and it's his linkage that made me aware of Peng's incredible public service. Sadly, I tend to get behind on reading it because I don't want to skim through it (I also tend to get behind on Campbell's blog and other intellectually dense blogs--it's something I want to read when I'm thinking clearly, not when I'm bleary-eyed and trying to eat my hemp flakes). A few illustrations stood out when I was catching up on recent posts (which is really saying something, considering how jaw-dropping most of the art featured there is), so I thought I'd bring them to the attention of people who read this stupid blog but have missed out on Peng's, for whatever reason.

First, there's this incredible illustration by Phil Hayes (Flicker set here):










That's just an absolutely stunning use of color. I keep staring at this illustration in awe.

I also really liked this illustration by Robert G. Schneeberg (Flicker set):




















Sort of in the same general neighborhood as Richard Sala, what with the unnatural perspective and murder and whatnot. Or maybe I'm nuts. Regardless, a fine illustration.

There's a lot more to be found at Today's Inspiration, so do go spend some time there. It's certainly time better spent than reading some webcomic about vampire nuns on the moon or whatever. I'm not sure if I agree with Eddie Campbell's assertion a figment of my imagination posing as Eddie Campbell that we should consider illustration art to be a type of comics (or graphic novel or whatever you want to call the medium). In fact, I'm not sure I completely understand his argument. Like, is this something that applies to any illustration? Is NC Wyeth a cartoonist? I know that, back when I first discovered Wyeth (in an issue of National Geographic), his paintings immediately appealed to the same part of my brain which governed my comics reading. Of course, these kinds of questions are precisely the ones which seem to make Mr. Campbell bristle, so I'll stick to his larger point: these are works of art which readers of comics should appreciate, and we should be thankful to Mr. Peng for bringing them to our attention.

(Brief aside on Campbell's taxonomatophobia, just because I can't help myself: I think it's pretty self-evident that there's a time and place for extensive/intensive categorization, and that such preoccupations are not unique to comics culture (such as it is--maybe a taxonomically-oriented column would liven up the next issue of Comic Foundry). For most artistic pursuits, however, that kind of preoccupation is reserved for the academy, where experts debate categorization in order to create the most accurate possible history of a particular movement, medium, or whatever. It's also prevalent in the more serious types of criticism, partly because it helps establish a shorthand for talking about very complex subjects. Responsible critics/academics somewhat regret such categorization, because one always runs the risk of reifying the categories. This, in turn, might run contrary to the artists' intent, color audiences' interpretation of the work in question, etc. Of course, some academics/critics like to argue about this stuff for no good reason other than self-aggrandizement or semantophilia or something. Either way, it's mostly ivory tower bullshit for the majority of those who view/read/whatever the work in question (unless we're talking about something really obscure, in which case questions relevant to taxonomy might be the only reason people pay it any mind in the first place).

This, as you probably know, is not the case for comics, where ordinary fans have interminable, soul-destroying conversations arguments about which specific issues signal the start/end dates of the Silver Age, who exactly qualifies as a mutant, how to interpret adjectives when filing one's comics in alphabetical order, and so on. This isn't unique to comics--I think it's a general nerd culture phenomenon, the kind of thinking that leads people to argue that hours of Wikipedia research are part and parcel of consuming a video game/comic/whatever. I think this mentality probably originates in early days of fandom, back when sickly young men traded letters about science fiction stories. In fact, I kind of think this mentality is an inevitable product of nerd culture, in that this culture tends to fixate on cultural artifacts intended to be consumed, then disposed of and forgotten. Since regular people have historically viewed such art with contempt, nerdly obsession fosters a sense of group membership, or even superiority by virtue of consumption of the derided product. This, in turn, inspires an incredible degree of insularity within the subculture, rewarding further contemplation of the artifact over non-nerdish pursuits (LIKE DATING OR SHOWERING, HA HA HA). Which, of course, encourages exhaustive cataloging (which, at long last, necessitates exhaustive categorization).

Another thing: since these cultural artifacts were disposable and often produced for children, the original authors gave little thought to their internal logic. So it fell to the obsessed fan to weave some kind of internal consistency from a great tangle of hastily-produced junk. And since there were so many contradictory scraps of information, that led to (a) ever more convoluted tapestries of "continuity," (b) the notion of "canon," and (c) interminable, soul-destroying debates over how to interpret things intended for children and slow-witted adults. That is what I hate about comics fandom. What I like, for the record, are people who can look at an obscure piece of art and determine, with no hesitation, who inked it, what company produced it, etc. That's useful, non-solipsistic information. Nutty fanboys: I will like you better if you start concentrating more on actual art and story rather than the fictional characters who inhabit these comics. If you're reading this, you're too old to get into arguments about how long Batman can hold his breath, especially if this is part of a larger debate over which superhero can hold his or her breath the longest.)

Er, where was I? Oh yes: there's lots of good, free stuff on the internet, much of which compares very nicely to the comics you have to pay actual money for at your retail outlet of choice. I'm not talking about webcomics, really, but all the blogs where people are posting great comics which predate my existence by multiple decades: Mike Lynch, Karswell, Pappy, Scans Daily (I mean, not everything there is worth the effort to roll your eyeballs across the monitor, but sometimes someone posts something like this), Golden Age Comic Book Stories, Michael Sporn (lots of animation there also, but that's no reason to complain), Alan Holtz, the inconceivably great ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive (which also contains some incredible illustration and animation work)--this is a treasure trove of great comics. And that's just what I've assembled from my newsfeeder and various links in Journalista over the past few days. Ten years ago, I would not have believed that I would have the opportunity to purchase all these wonderful comics, let alone read them for absolutely free. The presence of these terrific sites sort of balances out the unfathomably positive reaction to those hideous Heroes TV Guide covers. People who like those TV Guide covers: click on some of the above links and decide once and for all if your taste is as bad as I fear, or if you just haven't been exposed to the good stuff yet.