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chaotic-he constantly mixes his own experiences in with his critical
comments. But what really troubles me is that America's most distin–
guished satirical cartoonist should shortchange the medium that spawned
his talent: Feiffer fails to ascribe literary value to the comic book as an
art form (and this value, it should be added at once, has nothing to do
with current pseudo-Camp nostalgia). "Comic books, first of all are
junk," writes Feiffer (and I have yet to determine the syntax of those
first two words
if
he insists on that comma after them). "Junk is a
second-class citizen of the arts.... There are certain inherent privileges
in second-class citizenship. Irresponsibility is one. Not being taken ser–
iously is another.... The success of the best junk lies in its ability to
come close, but not too close; to titillate without touching us. To arouse
without giving satisfaction." He concludes that comic books are viewed
fondly in retrospect by those of us who grew up on them as "samples
of our youthful innocence instead of our youthful corruption" and that
compared to the junk we're surrounded with as adults ("our architecture,
our highways, our advertisements, our mass media, our politics ... even
the air we breathe, flying black chunks of it"), they were pretty decent
junk.
A real champion of the comic book might not unreasonably have
made far more sweeping claims for it, like (1) it was a fantastically
inventive form which (2) required a high degree of participation by the
young reader in whom, ideally, (3) it developed a rudimentary sort of
literary---or, if you will, sub-literary- taste. What a spectacular gallery
of whirling, winged, superbly endowed heroes were splashed across those
blotchy pages! What resourceful and magnificently malignant villains
were ranged against them! What violence and butchery were regularly
exhibited before our wide eyes! It was not only junk-it was a whole
literature! It not only asked our willing suspension of disbelief-it com–
pelled it! And its unslacking hyperbole even steeled us a little for the
immense and terrible cruelty of the world we were to inherit.
Richard Kluger
,ll'SPI~11
,I('IINS
