Art Lesson

Graphic novelist Art Spiegelman — who I know but not all that well — was asked to pen a foreword to a collection of Golden Age Marvel comics. He was a curious choice since Art has long made clear his disdain for super-heroes and the kind of thing the book contained…but write it, he did. When asked to delete a somewhat-subtle reference to Donald Trump, Art instead withdrew his intro…and in this piece, he notes that the billionaire former CEO of Marvel, Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter, is a friend of Trump and a deep-pocketed campaign donor. I don't know if there's a connection and neither, apparently, does Art.

I like Art and find his views on comics worth listening to, even though I agree with few of the ones he holds about the super-hero variety. I think he fails to notice tongues-in-cheeks and overestimates how much of those comics are really about various people punching each other. He sees as fisticuffs what some of us see as ballet, but his views are hardly unique to him. You might want to give his essay a look-see.