Funsters and fantasts

A phrase often used in praise of comics artists is that they ‘transcend the limitations of the medium’. The apologetic subtext to that phrase tells you a lot. Even as we praise the greats of comics, we tend to do so as if their achievements are in spite of, rather than because of, their chosen medium. You seldom hear people saying that a work in prose, in paint or for piano ‘transcends the limitations of the medium’.

Comics have been ‘transcending the limitations of the medium’ from the get-go, as the lavishly printed and compendious coffee-table book, Masters of American Comics, accompanying a joint exhibition at the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, makes clear. The first comics were more or less inventing the medium on the hoof, so the ‘limitations’ actually came later — as genres crystallised and the mass market in strip cartoons and superhero serials took a grip.