"To draw outlines and color them in is about as dumb a way of painting as you can imagine, and you can look at my work and say that's how it's done." - Roy Lichtenstein
"At the time (1961) Roy was 38 years old and his two sons were very young and he liked making drawings for them of Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck from their Bazooka Bubble Gum Wrappers. One day he realized how important these cartoon characters were to them and decided to make one of the gum wrappers into a large painting." Janet Boris 2001
The work was done a few years after U.S. Senate hearings into the role of comic books and juvenile delinquency (see footnote #1 below for source). Clearly, politicians were keeping their collective eye on the important issues of the time.
Lichtenstein certainly recognized the power of the images and the importance of some of the comic book characters to his kids. But Lichtenstein claims he wasn't interested in reproducing or the original social context of the comics. He says that ""I think my work is different from comic strips- but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art." What is inspiring to me, as an artist, is that Lichtenstein was free to paint in as "dumb" a manner as he wished. Isn't it about time for a contemporary artist to rediscover the old 1950s era Roy Rogers comics in a similar mode? (Hint: check back here in a month or two.)
For some great images showing the inspiration for Lichtenstein's comic book paintings, see David Barsalou's website at http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html
Footnote #1: Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency, Interim Report of the Committee on the judiciary pursuant to S. Res. 89 and S. Res. 190, US Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Juvenile Delinquency. 1955-6. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 77-90720
