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Art Comic #1-4
Art Comic
A raucous skewering of the art world as told by a master of absurdity
Matthew Thurber’s Art Comic is a blunt and hilarious assault on the swirling hot mess that is the art world. From sycophantic fans to duplicitous gallerists, fatuous patrons to self-aggrandizing art stars, he lampoons each and every facet of the eminently ridiculous industry of truth and beauty. Follow Cupcake, the Matthew Barney obsessive; Epiphany née Tiffany Clydesdale, the divinely inspired performance artist; Ivanhoe, a modern knight in search of artistic vengeance, and his squire, Turnbuckle. Each artist is more ridiculous than the last, yet they are tested and transformed by the even more absurd machinations of Thurber’s fantastical art world. Can the Free Little Pigs destroy this blighted system? Will “The Group” continue its indirect assassination of promising young artists? Can artistic integrity exist in this world amid the capitalist co-opting, petty rivalries, otherworldly portals, heavenly interventions, and murders at sea?
Art Comic is brimming with references and cameos, outsize personalities and shuddering nonsense—Robert Rauschenberg smashes a beer bottle, Francesca Woodman, a wineglass. In the center of it all, Thurber’s twisted drawings and laugh-out-loud dialogue convey a complicated picture of an industry at the intersection of fantasy and reality. Part scathing condemnation, part irreverent appreciation, Thurber’s comics skewer the art world in a way only an art lover can.
Matthew Thurber’s Art Comic is a blunt and hilarious assault on the swirling hot mess that is the art world. From sycophantic fans to duplicitous gallerists, fatuous patrons to self-aggrandizing art stars, he lampoons each and every facet of the eminently ridiculous industry of truth and beauty. Follow Cupcake, the Matthew Barney obsessive; Epiphany née Tiffany Clydesdale, the divinely inspired performance artist; Ivanhoe, a modern knight in search of artistic vengeance, and his squire, Turnbuckle. Each artist is more ridiculous than the last, yet they are tested and transformed by the even more absurd machinations of Thurber’s fantastical art world. Can the Free Little Pigs destroy this blighted system? Will “The Group” continue its indirect assassination of promising young artists? Can artistic integrity exist in this world amid the capitalist co-opting, petty rivalries, otherworldly portals, heavenly interventions, and murders at sea?
Art Comic is brimming with references and cameos, outsize personalities and shuddering nonsense—Robert Rauschenberg smashes a beer bottle, Francesca Woodman, a wineglass. In the center of it all, Thurber’s twisted drawings and laugh-out-loud dialogue convey a complicated picture of an industry at the intersection of fantasy and reality. Part scathing condemnation, part irreverent appreciation, Thurber’s comics skewer the art world in a way only an art lover can.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published October 2, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
November 26, 2018
Why is it so many comics artists are miserable in art school, which for many of them is the only way they can learn aspects of their craft? Oh, yes, there are also now comics schools, thank heavens. Otherwise, the marginalization of cartoonists in these elitist environments will continue unabated. Art School Confidential, by Daniel Clowes, some pieces by Jeffrey Brown, who since has taught at the very Chicago Art Institute School that seemed to damage his confidence and well-being. Art School is about upper class AHHHT and not working class drawing and practicability (It's beneath us to talk about making money with art!!) and not something perceived as infantile, like comics, something necessarily quickly drawn and comparatively sketchy; that is, compared to Rembrandt to Rauschenberg.
In many ways Thurber's critique of Art Schools is familiar, and unsurprising. The faculty are themselves largely damaged, unsuccessful artists, ripping their students to shreds, viscously jealous of each other and any students who reveals any talent whosoever, pretentious and miserable theory heads. Easy targets for the general public, ugh. As a graduate of an MFA in Creative Writing Program, having read several critiques of those programs and having lived my own life there, I smiled in painful recognition.
Thurber's book is a smart, articulate farce, increasingly farcical as you go on, a kind of Duck Soup (by the Marx Brothers, kids!) for Art School, ending in chaos. Funny, and, oh, by the way, good comics storytelling: Cupcake, the Matthew Barney obsessive; Epiphany née Tiffany Clydesdale, wacky performance artist; Ivanhoe, a modern knight in search of artistic vengeance, and his squire, Turnbuckle. The Free Little Pigs bent on destroying the capitalist-based system. Can an artist who just wants to tell good stories or make good art live happily and make a living in this world? No, unless one learns to laugh along the way. Thurber does that.
In many ways Thurber's critique of Art Schools is familiar, and unsurprising. The faculty are themselves largely damaged, unsuccessful artists, ripping their students to shreds, viscously jealous of each other and any students who reveals any talent whosoever, pretentious and miserable theory heads. Easy targets for the general public, ugh. As a graduate of an MFA in Creative Writing Program, having read several critiques of those programs and having lived my own life there, I smiled in painful recognition.
Thurber's book is a smart, articulate farce, increasingly farcical as you go on, a kind of Duck Soup (by the Marx Brothers, kids!) for Art School, ending in chaos. Funny, and, oh, by the way, good comics storytelling: Cupcake, the Matthew Barney obsessive; Epiphany née Tiffany Clydesdale, wacky performance artist; Ivanhoe, a modern knight in search of artistic vengeance, and his squire, Turnbuckle. The Free Little Pigs bent on destroying the capitalist-based system. Can an artist who just wants to tell good stories or make good art live happily and make a living in this world? No, unless one learns to laugh along the way. Thurber does that.
January 3, 2019
This one's hard to describe. Thurber does make some attempts at clarification in his afterword, but even he seems confused by some aspects. In some ways, it's an attempt to illustrate various issues in the current Art scene--commodification, irrelevance, over reliance on shock value, etc. The loose narrative follows a group of art students as they leave school along various paths. A certain amount of familiarity with the art world of the last century or so is assumed. If you have no idea who folks like Matthew Barney or Jeff Koons or Marcel Duchamp are, for instance, you may get a bit lost.
At the very least, it's a fun romp through the Art world. I laughed out loud at the point where it starts getting into conspiracy theory (masterminded by R. Mutt of “Fountain” fame--a real person according to this book. Fun!) As with most Art, there are deeper meanings if you care to dig for them. According to Thurber’s afterword, this book was only partially successful in achieving what he hoped, but I’m still impressed and delighted with it. Whether you find it Deep and Insightful, a confused mess, or simply fun, it is most definitely recommend!
At the very least, it's a fun romp through the Art world. I laughed out loud at the point where it starts getting into conspiracy theory (masterminded by R. Mutt of “Fountain” fame--a real person according to this book. Fun!) As with most Art, there are deeper meanings if you care to dig for them. According to Thurber’s afterword, this book was only partially successful in achieving what he hoped, but I’m still impressed and delighted with it. Whether you find it Deep and Insightful, a confused mess, or simply fun, it is most definitely recommend!
January 29, 2019
As pretentious as the art world it satirizes.
January 15, 2022
Knowing very little about the art world, I found this to be very funny and insightful in a very quirky and original way.
The whole premise concerns what is art, how is it taught and how is it valued. To show this, the characters get into many different situations, which then shine a light on the absurdity of the real art world.
Very funny for the most part, I was a little lost at times, but enjoyed it overall.
The whole premise concerns what is art, how is it taught and how is it valued. To show this, the characters get into many different situations, which then shine a light on the absurdity of the real art world.
Very funny for the most part, I was a little lost at times, but enjoyed it overall.
November 17, 2018
This book is brilliant especially for artists and anyone with some level of art education. The experience of creating student art works and subjecting them to the critique of your peers and instructors is a maddening, yet invaluable experience. The post-graduation struggle to find your way as an artist in the world entails frustration, jealousy, outsized ambition, cynicism, and often compromise. Both processes feature prominently in this surreal, yet structured comic.
Other comic writers such as Dan Clowes have mined the art school experience from the skeptical eye of the outsider -- the comics geek who landed in a fine art school but was uncomfortable with far out theories of modern art. Thurber writes from an insider's perspective, as he is a fine artist who incorporates comics into a body of work which includes music, performance, and painting. He is either a true believer or recent apostate of capital A "Art", which lends Art Comic some spirit among the snark: he criticizes the art world because he loves it.
The original comics were drawn in black and white, and were lovingly colored for the book version. The drawing style is mostly primitive & functional, but once in awhile the artist treats us to a beautifully rendered spread to show us what he can do. Otherwise, it resembles a punk-rock version of Nancy and Sluggo if they inhabited a world of anarchy-activist pigs, copulating robots, and extra-terrestrial collector-predators.
Art Comic will certainly not bore you, and if you squint long enough and stick with it, it will start to make a lot of sense.
Other comic writers such as Dan Clowes have mined the art school experience from the skeptical eye of the outsider -- the comics geek who landed in a fine art school but was uncomfortable with far out theories of modern art. Thurber writes from an insider's perspective, as he is a fine artist who incorporates comics into a body of work which includes music, performance, and painting. He is either a true believer or recent apostate of capital A "Art", which lends Art Comic some spirit among the snark: he criticizes the art world because he loves it.
The original comics were drawn in black and white, and were lovingly colored for the book version. The drawing style is mostly primitive & functional, but once in awhile the artist treats us to a beautifully rendered spread to show us what he can do. Otherwise, it resembles a punk-rock version of Nancy and Sluggo if they inhabited a world of anarchy-activist pigs, copulating robots, and extra-terrestrial collector-predators.
Art Comic will certainly not bore you, and if you squint long enough and stick with it, it will start to make a lot of sense.
December 11, 2018
For a book that mocks the art world and includes a conspiracy, aliens, and Matthew Barney, I’m surprised I didn’t like it more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 13, 2018
Some of the characters are inspired - the Free Little Pigs for instance - and Thurber's ability to layer conspiratorial sub-plot over sub-plot is here, but there's something a bit awkward about the whole project that doesn't allow it to shine as much as 1-800-Mice or Infomaniacs.
December 10, 2018
Damn that's funny. Bet once me and Eric figure out everyone the sleazy filmmaker/gallerist/scenester is a pastiche of (can think of several) it'll be even funnier. Yeah, this is an in-jokey take on the art world, art school, art collectives, and the commerce driven art industry which is overseen by a shadowy cabal known as "The Group" upholding the status quo by psychologically sabotaging promising nascent artists (as opposed to the more petty levels that kinds of thing usually happens on). The thread that weaves through a lot of this is, in fact, the desire to be creative and make art and the problem of doing so in the face of a capitalist structure that turns even creative exploration into commodity, value into an arbitrarily assigned thing. (Yet in one tragic-comic scene, the idea of actually developing skill and caring about what you do is used to whitesplain racism and smack down a talented black woman painter with a bunch of faux-feminist babble about how "skill upholds the patriarchy." So even academic, deconstructionist jargon becomes a tool of oppression and misery.)
My personal view is that there is room for artists who make challenging work with traditional methods and in more conceptual ways. Thurber manages to make all of his artist characters likeable and representative of a variety of viewpoints which are all treated sympathetically.
My personal view is that there is room for artists who make challenging work with traditional methods and in more conceptual ways. Thurber manages to make all of his artist characters likeable and representative of a variety of viewpoints which are all treated sympathetically.
April 19, 2019
A wild and woolly romp through the contemporary art world as projected on the inside of one idiosyncratic comic artist's skull. It's not quite satire, not quite surrealism, not quite subjective sensationalism, but maybe a little bit all of the above. Thurber embodies the human urge to make art, while at the same time pissing all over the pieties, strictures and greed that can make it such a depressing commercial pursuit. From a Matthew Barney lookalike who looks nothing like Matthew Barney to a suicidal art student's meeting with God in a heavenly port-a-potty to a pirate ship of representational feminist painters, there are dozens of scenes and images here that combine the comedic with the critical with hysterical indelibility. Art is dead; long live art.
November 6, 2018
Comics about the art world are as tedious as poems about poetry, and stories about writers in writing groups.
I regret picking this up, as it didn't appear to have any interesting stories to tell except "working in artistic communities is fun and weird!" Unfortunately, all the stories it told were dull and uninspired.
I regret picking this up, as it didn't appear to have any interesting stories to tell except "working in artistic communities is fun and weird!" Unfortunately, all the stories it told were dull and uninspired.
December 23, 2020
Descerrejadisima crítica al mundo del arte con conspiración incluida para controlar el mercado del arte ya desde el sistema educativo. Cuenta las peripecias de varios alumnos atrapados en esa red y como les va afectando segun avanzan los años con mucho sentido del humor y buenas dosis de surrealismo. Si odiais el estado actual del arte hay mala leche para repartir a tope.
May 9, 2019
For a graphic novel about art school and the art world in general, this book has atrocious art. The writing isn't great either. It grew on me somewhat as I read it, but that just meant I merely disliked it rather than hated it.
August 20, 2022
Thurber crafts a cutting indictment of the art world that manages to be brutal, honest, and hilarious. Some of the best panels are where he lets his technical ability bleed through his, beautifully executed, sketchbook illustrations. Very good read, don’t regret a page of it!
August 31, 2023
With a satirical plotline worthy of John Waters, Thurber skewers the ludicrousness of the contemporary New York art world in all its capitalistic greed. Irreverent and fun...it did seem to lose steam about three quarters through, though.
May 15, 2019
4 stars in places and pretty funny.
June 30, 2019
I got nothing out of it. I guess you have to be more involved in the art world to appreciate it?
August 9, 2019
it's been a while since a book made me laugh out loud this many times!
January 19, 2022
i'm not fully immersed in the art world so yeah.
July 17, 2023
Wacky hijinks.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews