Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Jan 23, 2014 9:42:29 GMT -6
Boys in the late 1970s probably assumed the girls comic Misty was all boring romance, puppies and ponies. How wrong they were. They were full of "incredibly dark, weird, psychologically harrowing" stories with "trippy and odd" artwork, said John Harris Dunning.
Dunning is co-curator, with Paul Gravett, of what will be the UK's biggest exhibition of British comics, taking in everything from newly discovered Victorian comics to modern classics such as V for Vendetta.
The summer show, entitled Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, is being staged by the British Library which holds the complete output of the British comics industry but said it had not in the past done the genre justice.
Roly Keating, the library's chief executive, said: "It is fair to say, if we are being honest, that we haven't devoted to that sector of our collection the scholarly and curatorial effort we have devoted to some of the higher culture parts of our collection. This year we are addressing that with a vengeance."
The exhibition will have sedition and rebellion at its heart, said Dunning. It will also aim to explode a few myths, not least that the publications are all about superheroes and that reading them is the pastime of boys, he added.
"When we first started to talk to people about this comic book show some people said 'it's only for boys'. It's garbage," said Dunning. "People were saying girls don't like blood and psychologically upsetting things and the girls were saying, 'we love it'."
The show will explore the full gamut, from mainstream to underground.
One example of the latter is a little known comic book from the British Library archives called The Trials of Nasty Tales, a work which documented the 1973 obscenity trial in which the Nasty Tales comic book series were prosecuted.
That case followed the Oz magazine trial of a couple of years earlier and was the first comic to be prosecuted for obscenity. It was found not guilty.
The Trials of Nasty Tales comic featured text from the court hearing and a scary monster, wigged barrister, accusing one young witness, saying: "You're just a dirty minded girl!"
The artist responsible was Dave Gibbons who went on to create the comic book Watchmen with the writer Alan Moore.
Gibbons welcomed the exhibition. It reflected a coming of age for comics, he said, and was something of a validation for people like him.
"I went to a very traditional school where they would raid desks and take comics off to the orchard to burn them. Fast forward 40 years and they now invite me to the school to lecture on graphic novels."
For some outsiders the perception is that the genre is all superheroes and not much else, but many insiders despair too.
Gibbons admitted: "It is remarkable how much of the American comic book industry is based on superheroes and has been locked on that for so long. I've done my share but like any genre you do reach your limit and arguably it has been reached.
"They'll always have a resonance with people but I'd like to think the field is wider – there's things for people of all ages and inclinations, rather than just [for] adolescent boys."
The Misty comics for girls, published between 1978-84, were a training ground for writers such as Pat Mills, who went on to write for 2000 AD magazine.
There will be other surprises in the show, including the discovery, only in the last couple of years, that the Illustrated London News was publishing in the 19th century what could be viewed as comics.
Gravett said: "For people like myself who are fascinated by where comics have come from and how they were perceived and read and who read them, this is an indication that Victorians of all classes were definitely consuming comics and enjoying them."
The library also disclosed that from October it will stage what it described as the UK's most comprehensive show of Gothic literature, timed to mark the 250 years since the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, a convention-breaking novel that helped pave the way for books by writers such as Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Mervyn Peake and Angela Carter.
Dunning is co-curator, with Paul Gravett, of what will be the UK's biggest exhibition of British comics, taking in everything from newly discovered Victorian comics to modern classics such as V for Vendetta.
The summer show, entitled Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, is being staged by the British Library which holds the complete output of the British comics industry but said it had not in the past done the genre justice.
Roly Keating, the library's chief executive, said: "It is fair to say, if we are being honest, that we haven't devoted to that sector of our collection the scholarly and curatorial effort we have devoted to some of the higher culture parts of our collection. This year we are addressing that with a vengeance."
The exhibition will have sedition and rebellion at its heart, said Dunning. It will also aim to explode a few myths, not least that the publications are all about superheroes and that reading them is the pastime of boys, he added.
"When we first started to talk to people about this comic book show some people said 'it's only for boys'. It's garbage," said Dunning. "People were saying girls don't like blood and psychologically upsetting things and the girls were saying, 'we love it'."
The show will explore the full gamut, from mainstream to underground.
One example of the latter is a little known comic book from the British Library archives called The Trials of Nasty Tales, a work which documented the 1973 obscenity trial in which the Nasty Tales comic book series were prosecuted.
That case followed the Oz magazine trial of a couple of years earlier and was the first comic to be prosecuted for obscenity. It was found not guilty.
The Trials of Nasty Tales comic featured text from the court hearing and a scary monster, wigged barrister, accusing one young witness, saying: "You're just a dirty minded girl!"
The artist responsible was Dave Gibbons who went on to create the comic book Watchmen with the writer Alan Moore.
Gibbons welcomed the exhibition. It reflected a coming of age for comics, he said, and was something of a validation for people like him.
"I went to a very traditional school where they would raid desks and take comics off to the orchard to burn them. Fast forward 40 years and they now invite me to the school to lecture on graphic novels."
For some outsiders the perception is that the genre is all superheroes and not much else, but many insiders despair too.
Gibbons admitted: "It is remarkable how much of the American comic book industry is based on superheroes and has been locked on that for so long. I've done my share but like any genre you do reach your limit and arguably it has been reached.
"They'll always have a resonance with people but I'd like to think the field is wider – there's things for people of all ages and inclinations, rather than just [for] adolescent boys."
The Misty comics for girls, published between 1978-84, were a training ground for writers such as Pat Mills, who went on to write for 2000 AD magazine.
There will be other surprises in the show, including the discovery, only in the last couple of years, that the Illustrated London News was publishing in the 19th century what could be viewed as comics.
Gravett said: "For people like myself who are fascinated by where comics have come from and how they were perceived and read and who read them, this is an indication that Victorians of all classes were definitely consuming comics and enjoying them."
The library also disclosed that from October it will stage what it described as the UK's most comprehensive show of Gothic literature, timed to mark the 250 years since the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, a convention-breaking novel that helped pave the way for books by writers such as Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Mervyn Peake and Angela Carter.