Comic art, from a historical perspective

The Capital Times of Madison, Wis., visits the Milwaukee Art Museum's Masters of American Comics exhibit, which features work by the likes of Winsor McCay, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Charles Schulz, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware and Gary Panter.

McCay "did for comics what D.W. Griffith did for the movies and Louis Armstrong did for music. He transformed mechanical reproduction into a creative medium for self expression," writes comics scholar John Carlin in a catalog essay for the show. Catalog contributors include notable artists and writers such as "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, Stanley Crouch, Jules Feiffer, Pete Hamill, J. Hoberman, Dave Eggers, and Jonathan Safran Foer.

Carlin's point is that newspaper comics fed an American desire for playful insights on daily life while adding color and vitality to the largely "gray" mass medium.

The exhibit continues through Aug. 13.

(Pictured, art from a 1947 Steve Canyon strip, by Milton Caniff)