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Look! In the art gallery! Comics!

Graphic art has grown beyond the realm of schoolboys and is catching the eyes of the fine-arts crowd

By Rich Copley rcopley@herald-leader.com

When Jonathan Gilpin was a student at Linlee Elementary School, there was a teacher who would take his comic books and tear them up. That makes it particularly satisfying for him to bring comic art to a Lexington art gallery.

Comic Art is an exhibit of work by area comic artists that will be on exhibit through Sept. 6 at the LexArts Gallery in ArtsPlace.

”It validates the art for a lot of people,“ says Gilpin, coordinator of the Lexington KY Comic Creators Group, which is presenting the show with LexArts. ”Here we are in a gallery normally only available to people considered part of the ‘fine arts.’“

Jay Chuppe, a Paducah artist whose Red Mullet and Cow-Boy won second place in judging for the exhibit, says that in the past few years, ”I’ve seen the comic book world cross over to fine arts and vice versa, and they meet in the middle.“

The meeting has been building in recent years as comic books have grown up into graphic novels and shaken off a reputation as strictly schoolboy material.

”The term graphic novel has helped legitimize comics as art and literature,“ says Mike Deetsch, exhibitions and programs director at the Lexington Art League, which will present a comic art exhibit of its own at the Downtown Arts Center in early 2009.

A change in terminology has helped raise the regard for comics, but movies have been a big factor, too.

The Batman and Spider-Man franchises obviously have comic roots, but people are sometimes surprised to find that Ghost World, The Road to Perdition and A History of ­Violence, to name a few, also are adaptations of graphic novels.

”It’s the same thing movies do for literature,“ Deetsch says. ”People see a movie, and they want to go read the book. They’re just surprised to find it’s a comic book, but then they find they like it.“

The comics could do the same thing for art galleries.

Both Deetsch and Nathan Zamarron, LexArts community arts manager, say they had to find different avenues to reach out to comic artists than they had for more traditional gallery fare.

Zamarron attended a meeting of the Comic Creators Group and struck up a conversation with Gilpin, and they hatched the idea of creating an exhibit of comic art.

The juried show features a variety of images, including James Gibson’s Showdown in Somerset, portraying a super hero-and-villain clash in the town center, and Mike Maydak’s The Year of Blood Estill’s Defeat, sepia-toned images of a battle with no dialogue clouds. There also are works from well-known area comic artists: Kenn Minter, Sara Turner and Herald-Leader artist Chris Ware.

In addition to the exhibit, LexArts and comic creators sponsored a comic workshop earlier this month at the Downtown Arts Center, which was led by Shawn Crystal, an instructor from the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Atlanta campus.

The exhibit shows comic artists coming at some traditional forms with a distinct Bluegrass State mentality.

Chuppe, for instance, developed Red Mullet and Cow-Boy, which is a finalist in Platinum Comics Comic Book Challenge (www.comicbookchallenge.com), out of the idea that most superheroes were from big cities.

”Why not set it in a rural area?“ Chuppe says. ”We all know that guy who can go down to the hardware store and rig up something with PVC pipe to solve a problem at their house. What if you had a superhero who got his equipment from the hardware store and dealt with things like meth labs?“

Zamarron says that Crystal, who was the juror of the Comic Art show, commented during his visit that comics were growing in stature, and that artists are responding.

”Now the artists are more thoughtful in what they’re producing,“ Zamarron says. ”They’re getting accustomed to the fine-art world.“

That includes getting accustomed to how to display their work in something other than a book.

Preparation for the exhibit included sealing the pieces in mylar pouches, which would not hurt the pages, for display.

Some of the participants could be doing it again soon. The Lexington Art League has put out a call for artists for that 2009 show. Deetsch says it was a coincidence that he and Zamarron programmed comic shows close together, but he thinks they highlight a growing trend and can complement each other.

”I want to see works in progress as much as I want to see finished works,“ Deetsch says. ”I want to show the process.“

The comic artists are happy to be shown. Gilpin, now 45, hopes that the teacher who tore up his comics would have a different attitude.

”Comics are so creative in a number of ways and draw kids into reading,“ he says. ”I’m sure she’d rather see a kid come in with a comic book than a GameBoy.“