Dav Pilkey, author of the "Dog Man" series, looks through the Graphic Arts Galleries with curator Sara Duke in October. The "Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages" exhibit at the Library of Congress continues through September 2020. (Photo by Shawn Miller courtesy of Library of Congress)

Library of Congress exhibit on comics shows off the art form’s rich, diverse history in America

By Athena Naylor On Nov 14, 2019 Last updated Nov 13, 2019

While you don’t need to be a comics aficionado to appreciate the new installation Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages at the Library of Congress (LOC), you may be inspired to become one after seeing it. The exhibit showcases comics as a rich and diverse art form, one with a significant imprint on American cultural history.

Highlighting items from the extensive comics collection in the LOC’s prints and photographs division, Panels and Pages succinctly details more than a century of publication history in the space of a single room in the Jefferson Building’s Graphic Arts Galleries. The exhibit opened Sept. 12 and will remain on view through next September.

One wall of the display illustrates the rise of popular American comics during the late 19th century, when technological advancements in printing images — such as half-tone printing and photoengraving — led to a proliferation of illustrated magazines and newspapers.

Richard Felton Outcault (1863–1928). Copyright deposit for “The Yellow Dugan Kid,” Sept. 7, 1896. Graphite, watercolor and India ink drawing. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

An original page from an 1896 issue of The New York Journal hangs here, with an illustration starring America’s first commercially successful comic character: “The Yellow Kid.” Named for his signature oversized yellow nightshirt, the character was an amusing street urchin with a bald head, big ears, and a buck-toothed grin. Soon after The Yellow Kid was introduced to readers in The New York World, the cartoon’s creator — Richard Felton Outcault — switched jobs to work at The New York Journal. His creation had already proved so popular, however, that The World played copycat and continued running Yellow Kid illustrations drawn by a different artist. Though Outcault had requested advice from the U.S. Copyright Office to prevent such a situation, he was unable to stop the World from concurrently using his character. Outcault’s letter requesting copyright privileges, on display in Panels and Pages, accentuates The Yellow Kid as a critical precursor to future newspaper funnies — and is evidence that comics are and have long been a valuable marketing tool.

The rest of Panels and Pages leads the viewer in a not-quite-chronological journey through comics history, covering familiar newspaper features like “Peanuts” and “For Better or For Worse,” classic serials like “Archie,” and well-known superhero franchises like “Batman,” “The Hulk” and “Wonderwoman.”

Alongside these recognizable cartoons, the exhibit offers an array of lesser-known contributions to the history of comics, demonstrating the diversity in this art form. Display items include sci-fi fanzines from the 1950s and ’60s along with original issues of notable African American publications like “All-Negro Comics” from 1947 and “Lobo” from 1965. Women’s contributions to the underground comic movement are also highlighted, including the publication “Twisted Sisters” and a variety of independently published minicomics. (In this respect, the exhibit expands some themes from the 2017 LOC exhibit, Drawn to Purpose, which highlighted female illustrators and cartoonists in North America.)

Marie Severin (1929–2018). The Incredible Hulk. “Ring Around the Rhino!” June 1968. Script by Gary Friedrich, edited by Stan Lee, and drawn by Marie Severin. Ink and white out over pencil with overlays and paste-ons. George Sturman Collection, 1992. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (© Marvel, used with permission)

In a dramatic contrast to its 19th-century-centric wall, Panels and Pages also showcases a decidedly modern mode of comics publication through a TV screen displaying LOC’s webcomic archive, which became an official project in 2014. This ever-growing collection reflects the internet’s role as a dominant purveyor of comics since the early 1990s, allowing independent creators to share content and formats not often seen in mainstream media.

Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages compresses an impressive amount of information and visuals into its modest display. An obvious disadvantage to the space limitation is that one or two comics must serve as representative samples of much more complex and wide-ranging trends within the art form’s history. The scope of the exhibit is also limited to North American comics, when the LOC’s holdings — comprising the largest comic collection in the world — could undoubtedly fill even the most expansive exhibition hall.

Nevertheless, the exhibit achieves an engaging introduction to the history of comics that can serve as an effective review for casual fans, while offering enough niche material for connoisseurs. Aspiring cartoonists should also surely appreciate the original pages on display — like a Chris Ware original that illuminates the penciled trial and error that precedes the final version of the artist’s notoriously clean, geometric style.

Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages is open from 8:30 to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, located at 10 1st St. SE. Recent programming associated with the exhibit has included talks with Jaime Hernandez, co-creator of the long-running punk-Latinx comic “Love and Rockets,” and with Lynn Johnson, creator of “For Better or For Worse.” Future programming for the exhibit will be updated on the exhibit’s website.