Are comic books Art? The question has been a thorny one since comics first appeared over a century ago and highbrow pundits predicted that the Sunday funny pages would destroy the fragile public’s chances of bettering themselves through exposure to the classics. Of course, they were right (thank God!), and comics — along with all the other exciting new popular art forms that emerged over the course of the 20th century (as well as certain strains of Modernist art making) — threw a monkey wrench into the stuffy, inhibited, inbred and arbitrary mechanisms by which such distinctions are decreed. Effectively, the authority of a few wealthy pillars of society to bestow immortality on those who toed the party line — and obscurity and poverty on those who didn’t — was wrested away and recast as a question of popular — and, to some degree, critical — consensus.
more from Doug Harvey at the LA Weekly here.