Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Hey can anybody out there ID the original panel, comic ish of Superman, page number etc of this obvious Andy Warhol swipe of a Curt Swan (possibly Swanderson)?

(http://members.aol.com/popartart4u/kaufman/warholsuperman.JPG)


Warhol made millions with this and Swan....0.

Actually THIS IS THE ONE  we're looking for the origin of

Looks like a Schaffenberger to me - note the lines on the forearm in lieu of Cap Marvel's armbands?!

(http://g.myspace.com/00051/78/26/51746287_l.jpg)

Possibly a Lois Lane or JO from the early 60s.  Outside just chance it's actually from the Sunday strip being done by Boring or Win Mortimer, at the time.  But possible a Schaffenberger fill in?

Anybody??????????  Eagle eyes wants you! :shock:

Not sure of the comic, but it's definitely a swipe from Schaffenberger.

Here's a (poor) image showing more of the original page (though it seems to have been cut up).  Maybe it'll help you find the comic.  The dialog especially might be helpful, with it's references to Van-Zee, Sylvia and Lois' "double":

(http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_imago/v053/mid/53.2collins_fig02m.gif)


I found it here, in an academic treatise on the work:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_imago/v053/53.2collins_fig01.html

Nightwing  the image you posted isn't showing and the link apears to be restricted.

But hmmm... definitely a vintage LL!

Bah! Andy Warhol was a fraud. He took everybody for a ride with his work. That Superman image above is proof of it.

Hmm...the image may be inaccessible for the same reason the article is.  It's at Johns-Hopkins, and since I'm logging on from another University, I seem to have access rights maybe everyone else does not.

Anyway, here's the image again, hosted this time at my site:

(http://nightwing.supermanfan.net/images/warholswipe.jpg)

If anyone's interested in the text of the article, let me know.  But there's no reference to what the original comic was.  Suffice to say there is a lot of speculation about how the image (and the Superman legends in general) have homosexual overtones.

Bleh.  Personally I think, as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Thanks, Nightwing.  

Think the title of that title was "The Girl Who Was Lois Lane's Double" altho exposure to Green K has weakened my powers of total recall. Uh...I mean sea water! :wink:

The cover had Van Zee as Superman & Sylvia (Lois) getting "married" and wasnt a hoax, dream or imaginary story-- well, I dunno about "hoax".

Warhol WAS a HOAX!

This seems to be the issue where Van-Zee and Sylvia wed.  Also listed in some places as the first appearance of Sylvia.

http://www.comics.org/details.lasso?id=15513

Your the man in Kandor! Holy cow! :shock:

Both of these images were the subject of a post by Super Monkey a few months ago: Superman in the Fine Arts (http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1066&highlight=)

There was some discussion there about how the original artists should have been paid for their artwork.

The "up, up, and away" Superman image is a Swanderson from page two of Action Comics #430 (December 1973).

At least Roy Lichenstein acknowledged his Joe Kubert and Russ Heath combo/collage  swipes from DC war mags in his "Jet Ace" and admitted as such.

(http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/HOT-SHOT.gif)

Playing devil's advocate here, one could argue that at the time Warhol did his swiping, comics weren't thought of as "art" as much as they were "product."  At least in Warhol's mind.

In a very sad sense, it's a compliment to Curt Swan that his portrayal of Superman was so definitive and correct that the existence of an artist wasn't even considered.  It wasn't a drawing - it was Superman.  Swiping Curt Swan's Superman was like swiping a Coca-Cola or Campbell's Soup can.  A piece of America.

But I certainly agree that Curt and Kurt should have received recognition and money for what was basically overpriced recolorings of their work.

But there was POP Art - which emerged on the art scene in the early 60s just prior to The Batman (66) Tv show.  With "camp" and "pop art" being the latest craze, the arts and advertising communities went wild.  Even DC had Go-Go checked covers  and Marvel was a "Marvel Pop Art production". :shock:

(http://spaightwoodgalleries.com/Media/Lichtenstein_Crak3.jpg)
Lichenstein's take on DC's Mlle. Marie - the Kubert/Heath/Sparling(?) school.

Artist Mel Ramos did a take on a Bob Kane (Robinson? Sprang?) Joker and even Newsweek posted a Sman ad on subways! (have ad but no bandwidth -  will travel)

(http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1997/Articles0697/GIFs0697/MRamos3D.GIF)
Still....darn shame. Well, there's always art history books to be written! :twisted:

Vintage 1966 article on Pop Art from Newsweek here:

http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/newsweekapr66.htm

The JHU article (that I'm having so much trouble linking to) has a couple of passages I'll paraphrase here.  One was that Warhol was a devoted fan of comics dating back to a childhood illness when they kept his spirits up, the other was that "Warhol was the first to assert that originality was not a key requirement of making art".

Or something to that effect.  The implication being that Warhol didn't feel any "guilt" about "swiping" the art.  Indeed, the clear signal here, despite his "fondness" for them, is that he considered comics to be things beneath consideration when it came to rights of ownership or attribution.

An interesting irony.  Artists like Kurt Schaffeberger busted their butts for decades trying to produce exciting, novel art that was as unique as possible and for them the act of swiping would have been a source of great shame.  Meanwhile Warhol made tons more money than Kurt ever dreamed of by stealing the work of another (superior) artist and turning the very act of theft into some kind of "performance art."  ("I know I stole it...if you were really cool, you'd understand that's the whole point")

What do you want to bet the Warhol estate would sue any of us into the poorhouse if we reproduced his works without permission?  

The only reason Warhol passes as "art" is because what's followed has ben even worse.  Reprehensible as plagiarism is, it still beats floating a crucifix in a jar of urine and calling it art.

There has been quite a bit of literature published over the last 20 years on the intersection of comics and so-called fine-art.  Journals like the Journal of Popular Culture, Print, and the International Journal of Comic Art (http://www.ijoca.com/) have dedicated space to this issue.  One of my favorite articles from the Comics Journal http://www.english.ufl.edu/comics/scholars/TCJ_Index.html discussed the matter under the rubric, "Who is the better artist, Jack K or Roy L?"  (quoting from memory).  Kirby (and the EC artists) were judged inferior in that article, if I remember.  I think that many caroonists and comic scholars (even those with fine art or literary pretensions/reputations) today would beg to differ with that verdict, which I think was intended as something of a provacation to the insular comic fan world, but still valid in some sense.

Here is a list of some other articles, from the Comic Research Bibliography:
http://www.rpi.edu/~bulloj/comxbib.html

Canemaker, John. 1991. Popeye meets Warhol. Conde Nast Traveler 26(Jul):90-91.

Collins, B. R. and D. Cowart. 1996. Through the looking glass: Reading Warhol's Superman. American Imago 53(2; Summer):107.

Gidal, Peter. 1971. Andy Warhol Films and Paintings. Vista/Dutton.

Kurtz, Bruce D. (ed.). 1992. Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Walt Disney

[exhibit catalogue with essays by Bruce Hamilton and Geoffrey Blum]. Phoenix Art Museum / Munich: Prester

Saltz, Jerry. 1999. Imitation Warhol [Takashi Murakami's manga / anime influenced fine art]. Village Voice (August 25). online at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9934/saltz.shtml
[/list]

Nightwing, I obviously agree 100 % and Telle, they dont call you the Kryptonian god of wisdom for nothin'.

Thanx for the imput and links, guys.

I'm thinking about a Superman Artist Avenge Squad right about know. :wink:

Here's a link to a great Lichenstein revealed site.  SWIPE-A-RAMA!
Think Im gonna have to change my statement earlier about "collages".
More like wholly freakin RIP OFF!!!

http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

Mark Evanier talks about Lichtenstein today in his blog, mentioning that there is a museum exhibit right across the street from a Russ heath comic book convention appearance.

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2005_02_02.html#009528

I hope Russ aint packing heat! :shock:

Some additional info from The New York Times by way of the Supeman Home Page about that Warhol swipe from Schaffenberger .


March 6, 2005: Warhol Superman Painting in Multi-Million Dollar Collection  

A March 3rd New York Times article about Wall Street trader Steven A. Cohen included a sidebar showing images of "prominent works of art" which Cohen spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" purchasing. Among the items pictured (which include a $52 million Jackson Pollock painting titled "No. 8, 1950" and a $20 million Monet painting of "Waterlilies") is a $25 million Andy Warhol painting titled "Superman" from 1960.
The painting appears to be based on a comic-book panel of Superman blowing out a fire, complete with the word "PUFF!"

This is not the only painting Warhol did of Superman, but it's certainly interesting to note the dollar value of the painting. Superman’s success in the world of fine art is a distinction that is most likely unique to him alone.

So my question is did Andy ever pay DC Comics anything for the use of their copyrighted character?  :?

No.

Well, I tracked down a copy of this comic (the one nightwing links to right above) and scanned it in (http://superman.nu/tales4/super-family/), but the panel in question is not in it, nor does it contain a story called "The Girl Who Was Lois Lane's Double," which, based on the two panels above, seems to actually be a sequel to this issue.

Maybe if DC went after the Warhol estate, they could get enough money to buy out the Siegels...

:s:

Unfortunately Great One I did the same thing...one hopes it's in another Van Zee/Lois/Sylvia tale from that time period. The GCDB lists a few.


Maybe if DC went after the Warhol estate, they could get enough money to buy out the Siegels...  :shock:  Best idea yet!:D

There's a varation on this image that Warhol did where the ink drawing was separating from the colors, leaving kind a ghostly visual. It's reprinted in Les Daniels' DC Comics in the Pop Art section.

Well kids, your two favorite detetctives Nightwing and ol Klar finally solved the case.

Based on Nightwing's lead, and a little detective work at the old GCD, I eyeballed the panel in question in Lois Lane 24.

Yup took it out of it's protective comic bag at the Big Apple con and saw it for my very self. (Couldnt afford the darn thing though)

First story in the ish!

Thanks Nightwing!  By George (reeves), he's done it again! :s: