Dave Schaafsma's Reviews > Art Comic

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.