Comic Book History

The beginning history of comics can be traced back to the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century.  There’s a unique diversity to the comics that are commonly present today, but I wanted to explore the history of black comic book characters.  We’ve seen black superheroes in movies and TV shows like Hancock, Blankman, and Meteor Man, but what about them actually being present and printed in comic strips?  The only superhero I could think of in present day comic books would be X-Men’s own, Storm.  After doing some research, I came across the first black super hero to have his own comic book solely dedicated to himself.  Famous comic illustrator, Stan Lee, was responsible for The Blank Panther aka T’Challa.  He made his first appearance in a Fantastic Four comic in 1966.  Diving deeper into my research, I came across a comic book that was illustrated and printed by Blacks for Blacks in 1947.  Coincidentally, the name of the comic book was called “All-Negro Comics”; introducing the first "independent" black heroes: Ace Harlem and Lion Man.

Black comic book characters actually ended up being a very important piece of history all across the world.  Many of these characters were often depicted as being humorous characters; having extremely dark skin, kinky hair, and worn out clothing.  Most of the time, the characters were shown as being able to dance, play music, dominate in sports, or eat chicken/watermelon.  Of course this all sounds stereotypical, but from an artistic stand point, the overall look of simplicity that that these characters possessed developed into greater detail with over-exaggerated muscle on top of muscle, chiseled abs, and a perfect face.  Artists took these black characters and had them evoke the same kind of feeling we're supposed to get when we see Batman or Superman.

  

http://poisonousparagraphs.blogspot.com/2009/02/dart-adams-presents-black-like-me.html

Illuminated Manuscript

During the Medieval time period, illuminated manuscripts were considered marvels and modern-day pieces of graphic art.  With precision and carefulness, these manuscripts were “illuminated” and “enlightened” with bright, bold, and very vibrant colors, such as golds, reds, and silvers.  An illuminated manuscript could not considered as such, if gold was not present in the illustration because gold was a way of “exalting“ the text.

Today most books are mass-produced and the hard work that was once put in, somewhat lacks originality and it‘s own unique appeal.  Back then, it took patience and skill to come up with a layout incorporated with color, decoration, and text.  The Limbourg Brothers were great examples of artists who took the time to actually exercise patience.  They were contracted by the Valois duke of Burgundy, Philip II, to work on illuminating a bible and it taking them four years to complete.  Coincidentally, Philip II ended up dying before the illustrations were complete.

It is evident that photographs were not present back then, so it made since that men and women of power would go out there way to make sure that they had an artist(s) who was able to record and illustrate their life’s accomplishments because they knew that their story would be told centuries and centuries to come.  For instance, Simon Marmion’s “Grandes Chroniques de France” recalls the history of France; beginning under the reign of Saint Louis and chronologically progressing through his successors until 1461.  It’s safe to say that we’ve came a long way and owe many of our advancements to the artists and innovators in earlier civilizations.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/manu/hd_manu.htm
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/book/hd_book.htm

Graffiti Movement

It’s amazing how we, as artists, are told that we are some of the most innovative, imaginative, and creative people to ever walk this earth. Even more amazing is how many artists have been ridiculed, chastised, and even killed due to their own artistic freedom of communication. I guess we can say that graffiti is probably the most relevant to the topic of artistic expression. Graffiti is everywhere..whether we realize it or not. We see it in bathroom stalls, sides of buildings, highway overpasses, etc. The movie we watched in class really hit hard on how difficult and dangerous it is to be able to communicate to the world without being accused as a troublemaker, "gangsta", or vandal. The fact that graffiti started out as just figure drawings and engravings on cave walls and ruins and how it has evolved and found its way onto much larger platforms shows just how elaborate, unrestrained, and influential societies are across the globe.

This graffiti, by Banksy, depicts the removal of graffiti.  If you notice the animal figures in the illustration, they resemble the cave art found in Lascaux.



After doing a little research online, I found a couple of websites like weburbanist.com & open.your.eyes.free.fr that had several different pictures and touched on a very interesting type of graffiti called "stencil graffiti". Stencil graffiti is illustrated with the use of graffiti. Some may consider it "cheating" because it's not entirely freehand. Instead, an image is cut out and designed on some kind of media, like paper or cardboard, and then the image is transferred onto the surface with spray paint or roll-on paint. Even though the idea and concept sounds pretty basic, artists like the mysterious Banksy are able to design and illustrate some pretty detailed & elaborate pieces in a matter of minutes and still be able to get their point across.