Friday, August 19, 2005

Boy Wonder (Sooo wrong. On so many levels!)

This is a water-color done by a guy named Mark Chamberlain. The BBC reports that DC Comics is suing to have it taken down, taken off the web, and have the artist hand over all the unsold work. It's just another example of art being screwed up beyond all comprehension. What was it Nietzsche said? "If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you." Well, chalk this up with "Piss Christ" and that feces covered Virgin Mary--not that Batman is our lord and savior--but look we live in this crazy world where junk like this is art. In fact, if one was to paint a Dante-esqe image of gays being sent to hell it would be hate speech, or an anti-abortion novel would "threaten reproductive rights, or, God forbid, display the Ten Commandments. Now, I don't want to go off like Tom Wolfe here but perhaps the difference between Art and Obscenity is that Art actually has something other than a visceral effect. Art reveals a truth, even if that truth is disturbing, whereas obscenity plays only to our basic impulses on violence, sex, power, and fear. Here we got a twisted image, but the twist is provided by the Genius of DC and Bob Kane. They created the icon, and this guy just transposed it onto an obscene image (this pic was the least of it). Is it art? Dunno, but if it is, I'm pretty sure it ain't good art. Check out BoingBoing for more images (if you can stomach it; it gets a bit more graphic) and some interesting background. (h/t: drudge)

(ed. Note- in genie junkie's unspoken opinion, Batman is WAY too close to Christ on the “coolness” scale -Garm)

3 comments:

  1. creepist. pictures. ever.

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  2. DC can gripe, but they encourage this sort of speculation about Batman and Robin with the double-entendres in the Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder book.

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  3. I'll have to check that out. If you have any examples off the top of your head let me know. But this kind of speculations goes all the way back to the "Seduction of the Innocent" book that created the comic book code. I believe the line was that Batmand and Robin's relationship was a homosexual's fantasy or something to that effect. I'm just saying that the twisting of icons might be an easy target, but when you essentially profane the whole idea, it's pretty worthless.

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