One of the finest things about living in New York City, beside the pizza and the bagels (and the pizza bagels), is the wide variety of society events and extravaganzas you can go to if you pay attention to the events ongoing throughout the city in this week's Time Out New York. As a little stuffed bull with a keen eye for art and culture, it's always fun to spend a few hours in the evening at some art opening or wonderful cocktail party. Of course, I also enjoy to read comics. That's why the best art opening that could have possibly opened, opened tonight at the Society of Illustrators on the Upper East Side: a retrospective of 30 years of original artwork from the books and comics of Mister Groth and Mister Thompson's Fantagraphics.
I do not get to go to lots of art opening nights often so this was quite a treat. Even then I sometimes find art galleries perplexing and bewildering. Normally I peer at art carefully over my reading glasses and try to understand what it is saying to me. I'm no art snob, of course—I'm pretty bullish on most of it—but I do especially love comics and I'd argue with ya that they are as worthy of the name art as most stuff that goes on in this busy, busy city, and more so than some. Orange curtains in the park? Really, I have those in my shower and no one wrote about me in the Times.
Original artwork from throughout the history of Fantagraphics is on display, and if you're a fan of contemporary indie comics I highly recommend it. You can see work by Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, Los Bros. Hernandez, Carol Lay, Jordan Crane, Kaz, Bob Fingerman, Joe Sacco, Tony Millionaire, Ivan Brunetti, Dan Altergott,. Bill Griffith, and the proverbial many, many more, stretching throughout Fantagraphics's history from a stat of the front cover of Love & Rockets #1 to the coming-soon thirtieth anniversary history of Fanta. Look out! Gary's got a gun!
Plus, you can read about what a Marvel fanboy Gary was in his younger days, and if you're the sort who just has to ask the question "Whatever happened to Al Columbia?"—well then, he's got some artwork here too. I get to work with the fine folks at Fanta distributing their books to bookstores around the country and they are a wild and wacky lot to deal with, but golly, do they ever put out a swell variety of comics for all interests. The art show's a sideways slice of history.
Still not convinced? Energetic Eric Reynolds has posted several photos of the exhibition and describes in it more detail here on FLOG. Seriously, it's wonderful to get to admire up close such a wide variety of beautiful original comics art, and the admission price is right: free, baby, free! Take the F train (the best train) to Lexington Ave./63th Street, and look for the Society of Illustrators right as you exit the subway. It's that simple! Even if you have a head stuffed full of beans like me!
The show runs from now through October 21, and the Society galleries are open Tuesday 10-8, Wednesday-Friday 10-5, and Saturday 12-4. I'm goin' back, you betcha, so if you see me there, say "hi!" I'm the little fuzzy one, standing on his tiphoofs to look at the art.
*apologies to Tom Spurgeon for the post title
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