Joy Katzmarzik, Comic Art and Avant-Garde: Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” and the Art of American Newspaper Comic Strips

Abstract

Some people do not appreciate the seriousness of newspaper comic strips, the fact that they contain cultural knowledge and can in fact be a serious and critically comment on our society. When one hears the word comic strips one usually thinks: funnies, entertainment, humor, cartoons, low art and appropriate for children (see Garfield, Peanuts, Marmaduke, etc.). In the academic sphere, apparently comic strips “fly under the radar” and “remain neglected” (Katzmarzik 12). This comes as no surprise if one were to consider how some people still view and treat comic books and graphic novels. Fortunately, in the academic sphere thanks to research such as that of Joy Katzmarzik on newspaper comic strips, and the research of other scholars on comic books and graphic novels attitudes towards these media are changing. Katzmarzik informs that so far, when approached and examined, newspaper comic strips are considered from a socio-scientific viewpoint, a media studies viewpoint, a pedagogical studies perspective, a comprehensive historical approach, within the context of popular culture and, finally, in relation to humor studies.1 Regarding newspaper comic strips in particular, there are some scholars who aim at establishing the connections between newspaper comic strips and avant-garde art thus demonstrating the shift from silliness to significance that such media can attain. Joy Katzmarzik is one such scholar whose study, Comic Art and Avant-Garde: Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” and the Art of American Newspaper Comic Strips (2019), focuses on newspaper comic strips as an avantgarde art form and questions the label of low art that is usually attributed to them (11). The overall intent of her thesis is to “disentangle the interdependence of commerce, humor, and art in newspaper comic strips” and her focus is specifically on Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes (1985-1995).