I was talking with my art teacher the other day...and I asked him why he disliked comics so much. (He has a rule. CCC. nothing cute...nothing cartoon...nothing copied. Comic fall under cartoons...and in some cases cute.) Well...needless to say, I wondered what his beef with comics was, and he replied..."I have nothing against comics, they're just considered low class art." He then continued to tell me that comic did not push the envelope, and then compared them with McDonalds. It's food, it's just not high quality food. I'm still pretty steamed about that conversation. I didn't have time to retort, because the bell rang.

Tell him that he needs to be more open minded. That there are more possibilities to comics than shitty art and bad stories, it's just like any other art medium (which can attract a mass of crud - like the film industry for instance), you just have to dig through the shit to find the gold nuggets. Then tell him to read "Understanding Comics"

I was required to read that and to read Sandman TPB #4 at the age of 19 in my English 101 class and I loved comics from then on. (Yes I am a late bloomer)
Oh and on that note you can also tell him that COLLEGE COURSES are now starting to require some students to read GOOD comics and write essays on whether or not they belong in the canon of literature. ;)
Hopefully that'll help you if the subject ever comes up again.


I will say in his defense that Private Art Higschools and most Hardcore Private Art Universities do not like people who draw like comic book artists. Some places will discourage and demand you not to draw that way. And maybe he doesn't want you guys to get in trouble later because of that.
Schools generally don't want people to copy other artists styles unless they're Master artists like Michealangelo. They want people to learn how to draw properly and without copying someone elses style, and that's why they discourage comic art in art schools.
Although they are doing that less now, they're more concerned with people who draw anime-manga styled now.

I think that feeling about comic art will fade soon. The comic book industry is dying (Believe me I prayyyy for that thing that'll bring it back) and even the animation industry (traditional 2d) is extinct. ((Little known fact: The last cell painting animation - the old school badass type of animation- was done in the early 80's. The Secret of the Nimh if you're wondering.))

My advice to you: if the subject ever comes up. Just ignore him. Most Highschool art teachers and college teachers (with the exception with Proffessional and Acredited Art Schools - and Art schools in Europe) aren't really that great. Most can't even draw as good as most comic book artists out there. And they can even be less creative in some cases.

Sorry for the rant... I didn't mean to go crazy on this one. :O

he's just one of those folks trained in the classics so he thinks that anything popular culture is low class. I had to read Adorno...who is a guy that hated popular music in the 50s and refused to consider it real music for various reason...same deal. He was trained to listen to classical music so he reeled at the idea of mass consumption of something so "simple" as popular music.

popular culture and their icons are powerful and I suppose they could be considered low class because it is made widely available but it seems to me, the stupid one is the one that tailors their work for the most elite of people. The point of art and music is to be seen and heard by as many people as possible.

Everybody knows about or has eaten at mcDonald's and McDonald's was revolutionary in it's own way. It was the first assembly-line style of cooking food BEFORE you order it and leave it under heat lamps for as fast as possible food.

Yes, McDonalds is revolutionary. Noone makes me as sick as their food does.

My dad is a highschool art teacher, and I know he's proud as hell that I have this comic as a major part of my life, he's actually also an aweomse artist as well, he used to do sculptures in metalurgy that are pretty artisticlly dense. I happen to agree that comic/cartoon art is a lower form of art, and probably for the same reasons, however I'm betting your teacher didn't express his opinions in the best way possible. Comic/cartoon art is all without exception a characture of realism. Keep in mind I'm not talking about storys, i'm just talking about art. Cartoons are, by nature meant to humourous charactures of real things, which is why, rarely, if ever, do you see a cartoon that is meant to invoke an emotion besides amusement (again on art alone, not counting writing).

There are exceptions to the rule of course, there are some excellent artists who use cartoons as a medium, as a device to play off of. But for vast majority of cartoonish art, what you see is what you get. Whereas you take something like Hogarth's Gin Street and Beer Lane which is rife with meaning and layered with subtext and they just don't compare.

Basically, the guy's a moron.

No, that's too harsh, I don't know him, he's probably very nice. But his opinions on comics are stupidly ignorant. As an art teacher he should read a bit more wildly, being stuck with narrow views like that is personally handicapping, but to be teaching students makes it so much worse! That's like teaching geography but missing out Asia because you don't like the Chinese!

In short, no, comics are NOT "like McDonalds"! Comics are NOT "low art", what a fatuous, imbecilic, ignorant viewpoint!
When you're talking about art, there are examples at EVERY level, in EVERY sphere of work that could be considered "less than worthy", -for various reasons. That's just how things are, but to single out an entire artform is so breathtakingly arrogantly stupid, I'd say the man could benefit from a few more years academic study.

Comics are just as capable of being platforms for the delivery of artistic statement as any other form an artist chooses to work in. As a delivery method, they're a lot more accessible to their audience than many of the other art styles currently in vogue, and therefore more successful!

...Speaking of "Low art", I was listening to a radio program on art collecting on BBC4 the other day (online); This curator (more like "salesperson") at the Guggenheim was telling the interviewer "What a great deal" the set of huge stainless steel sculptures were at "only" one million dollars, because apparently "when you think about it Picassos go for 100 times that, and all you're getting is just one little painting, while for only a one million you get ALL these! It's a pretty good deal." -That's someone in the apparent "high art" world talking, and talking shop too. Yeah, that's what it's really about I'm afraid. And if you actually get to be a practising artist, the only people who care about your "high art" ideals are the universities that only employ you to teach, or groups that will give you grants. Art buyers could give two shits about "low art" or "high art", they buy what gallery owners tell them to buy -art buyers are people who don't have culture, but do have the money to acquire it. ;)

-I hope I managed to be hypocritical somewhere there... It's a big subject and I could rant for a while longer because I do have some knowledge of the field.- More than I do about comics really.

It depends on what you define as Cartoon or Comic anyways.
Storyboard artists make "Comics" for films.
Concept artists make "cartoons" for animations and video games.
(by cartoons I mean like character designs and 3d models, are they not cartoons?)

I highly doubt you'd consider them low class in their technique and skill.

Btw Great analogy Ozone!!!

eww.. I hate McDonald's with a passion... but I love comics to death @_@

ConroyConroy
Btw Great analogy Ozone!!!

Thanks ^^ Compliments will get you everywhere ...now to go check out your comic.

Guys this is totally a low class form of art. So childish and dull. Losers.

I mean, the guy actually drew it all by hand (the color was done by digital editors), and it took him hours upon hours, just for one panel. Clearly he is on the lower tier, simply because it's in a comic. I mean, come on!

EDIT: That bastard!



Look at him disgrace the good name of "art"! Clearly this junk belongs in a trashcan. I hope he fails at everything he does in life, srsly. What a bastard.

kingofsnake
Comic/cartoon art is all without exception a characture of realism. Keep in mind I'm not talking about storys, i'm just talking about art. Cartoons are, by nature meant to humourous charactures of real things, which is why, rarely, if ever, do you see a cartoon that is meant to invoke an emotion besides amusement (again on art alone, not counting writing).

I disagree.

I took an upper level English course... one of the more intellectually challenging courses I took in college, in fact. I won't get in to everything we talked about, but some of the things I took away from it I'm about to summarize.

Really, comic 'cartoon' style art is only considered automatically humorous (or at least, in the case of mainstream superhero comics, low-brow) in the U.S. A big part of that is that our language for this style of art labels it 'comics'... limiting it by definition to things meant to amuse. This makes it hard to argue (to narrow minded art-teachers especially,) that it doesn't have to be funny.

Take Ghost World. Simple. Straightforward caracatures. But even just looking at the pages, writing aside, it isn't humorous drawings. The art tells a story that's real... even if the world it creates is full of broad caricatures. One of the things McLeod says in Understanding Comics that most resonated with me is that people relate more intimately sometimes to comics with less detail-- because its very lack of realism makes it possible for us to put ourselves fully into that thin line drawing.

As another example... take Maus. It's just about as stylized as you can get. We aren't even looking at humans... We're seeing very stylized mice and cats. But again, words aside, the art alone was never meant to amuse.

I think what I'm getting at is that comics aren't by nature or definition meant to amuse... they're meant to communicate. And I think they can communicate truth and pathos just as eloquently (sometimes moreso) as humor.

Whew. Soapbox. Anywho, GenericHuman, I agree with Conroy... get your teacher to read a copy of Understanding Comics since it's clear he doesn't.

Comics have to be able to tell a story while conveying it properly through images. Each individual frame is a piece of art.

Understanding Comics is a good basis and read, but it's a little too opinionated. "Glasses" is a bit of an ass occasionally.

I guarantee comic artists spend as much time if not more, on each page they make as one "high artist" with a white canvas who's art style is "symbolic" and involves red paint splatter.

And creating a style for your comic in of itself is hard enough.
People think that just because there are lots of pictures on one page, it must be easy to do.
Ask your professor to do a comic.
then
Tell your professor to

Someone
Stink it.

McDonalds pays better than comics. :)

I can see I'm about to walk into a quagmire here, but, hey, I'll go one better than Mr. Professor:

Comics aren't a lower form of art. They aren't art at all.

At least, they're not capital-A Art, which is what your teacher seems to be espousing.

Which isn't a bad thing, as in the post-modern society we (I assume) live in, anybody can be an Artist--while very few people can create a comic, much less a good comic.

I'll grant up front that my argument is largely a semantic one, but before any kind of reasonable discussion on this topic can commence, one needs to define "Art". Unfortunately, the term as currently understood can be applied to more than one activity/product of that activity, which creates disconnects like the one you've experienced with your teacher. For the sake of personal clarity, I define "Art" as any activity which is performed primarily (or only) for the purpose of self-expression.

Under this definition, pretty much anything can be art. This notion was reinforced during my time in Art College, when one of my teachers declared that the definition of art was "Anything that an artist declares to be art." She went on to prove it by turning a Coke can into Art before our eyes.

My instructor's perspective was an elitist one: to her mind, you needed a certain body of knowledge and even recognition of certain cultural institutions to qualify as an artist. But eventually I came to realize those distinctions are arbitrary and exist to justify the existence of Art to the unwashed masses who haven't been educated and just don't get that what Artists do is Very Important...

...even though it isn't. Capital-A Art is undoubtedly deeply meaningful to the people who create it, and it's in their best interest to convince the wider population, or at least some portion of it, that it's important. Because if they can't convince some people to support them, they'll have little choice but to accept that their navel-gazing doesn't really matter.

Which it doesn't.

If everything can potentially be art (it can), and anyone who wants to can rightly declare themselves an artist (they can), then Art loses its position as an elitist activity. And Artists like your teacher don't like that, because then they're out of a job.

Comics, like everything else, CAN be art, but the medium as it's widely understood in western culture is what I define as Craft.

And being a Craftsperson is a hell of a lot more challenging that being an Artist, because unlike Art, Craft has specific criteria by which it can be judged.

A clay pot with no bottom could be a great piece of Art, but it's a lousy piece of craft, because a pot that can't hold water is a lousy pot and there's no way around that.

I think it's generally accepted that a comic's objective is not primarily (or only) self-expression. That can be a component of it, but usually there's an overriding priority is telling a story. They are, with very few exceptions (none I can think of off the top of my head) a narrative form. And the creation of a narrative entails conforming to certain basic rules. If nobody can understand your story, it might be a fine piece of Art--but it's lousy craft, and to my mind, a lousy comic.

So, to my way of thinking, comics are not Art (though they can be defined as AN art, which, for clarity's sake, I call craft). And that's a good thing, because if they were, anybody could do them and they would lose the value they have as an aspect, however ill-regarded, of the society I live in.

A

Andrew Foley
Comics aren't a lower form of art. They aren't art at all.

At least, they're not capital-A Art, which is what your teacher seems to be espousing.

I've read through your entire piece and simply can not agree. You make a decent enough argument but you only really address one aspect of art and one aspect of art in comics. Your view, to my way of thinking at least, is too narrow. Personally I've always felt the whole "craft" idea to be a total nonsense as well; realistically it's far too broad and lumps together completely disparate fields with "creative application of skill" as the only common denominator. In practise it's generally used to snobbishly, ignorantly segregate lesser understood, less popular artforms away into a safer category.

The "anything can be art" idea only holds water if you can sell it. The art world is defined by two forces: the market and the critics. Academics, despite their fondest wishes and grandest expectations, are and always will remain on the fringes.

As I said before, "When you're talking about art, there are examples at EVERY level, in EVERY sphere that could be considered "less than worthy", -for various reasons."
And that's basically it! Forget trying to come up with definitions, that's for art students just starting out who're unsure of their place in things. Instead, simply realise that if you want to make an artistic statement you can do it through and as part of anything, and you can make that sell and even get grants for it if you sell it right.
-And narrative art is just as good as anything else for that purpose... Seen many plays? Watched many films? Jebus, Artists work through songs, even video games!

Not every video game is a noteworthy piece of art, not many at all, but they do exist. Not because the form doesn't lend itself to artistic expression, but simply because it's not a popular form for that use! Films, plays, and novels are however, but that doesn't mean they can't also be used for base entertainment as well, does it? And it's exactly the same with comics.

Generic Human
..."I have nothing against comics, they're just considered low class art."

This wording simply tells me that if tomorrow comics were considered (by whomever he listens/acribes to) as high class art, he would embrace and promote the art category. In my book, this person's opinion is not really significant, simply because it is based on nothing more than what a third party, not his own taste or well founded arguments, dictate. Ergo, taking the time and effort to argue for or against his opinion would be trying to argue with water for taking the shape of the receptacle it is currently in.

Tantz Aerine
Ergo, taking the time and effort to argue for or against his opinion would be trying to argue with water for taking the shape of the receptacle it is currently in.

That's brilliant :)

I hope no one misunderstood my post too much. I tend to be vauge alot. I'm not berating the skill of cartoonists, it's clear that some are as skilled as you can be as an artist. The "lower art" status for me is that cartoons don't have the depth and subtext of "higher art" as I said before, what you see is usually what you get.

Now what constitutes higher art, i think is a much more vauge question, and I think that distinction is where so many people start to disagree.

They're really vauge concepts, and like all really vauge concepts alot of them boil down to personal opinion. In a comparison to philosophy: I'm a neoplatonist. I sit down in a room with someone who follows thomas moore's philosophy. If we get in an argument, neither of us is going to come out a victor (assuming we can both argue well) because despite being in disagreement both arguments are logically sound.

To me high art is a picture that means several different things, and you can look at it for years knowing what it means, and then see something you never caught before and realize it may mean something different entirely, and then repeat the process several years later. You rarely see that with cartoonish art.

Did the guy actually say comics are a lower form of art? The art teacher I have dislikes people doing comic art in the class for a few reasons. Art as a class is there to build up basics and strengthen one's ability to draw and paint from life. Expressing yourself comes after you know the basics. Comics is a way of expressing yourself through a story. Therefore it doesn't fit into an art class because art classes are there to help you learn the basics. It's kind of like how you need to write a bunch of essays in school to learn the basics of writing, even though if you become an author you might never write essays.

It's a basics building thing. However that being said comics are just as varied as all other art. Some of it's great (Rembrant, Watchmen) and some of it's not (That crazy guy on the street who thinks his toenail clippings are art, and the Ctrl-Alt-Delete webcomic...)

kingofsnake
I hope no one misunderstood my post too much. I tend to be vauge alot. I'm not berating the skill of cartoonists, it's clear that some are as skilled as you can be as an artist. The "lower art" status for me is that cartoons don't have the depth and subtext of "higher art" as I said before, what you see is usually what you get.

I get where you're coming from. I just like to argue. ;)

And coming from a theatre background, I can BS my way through an argument on the nature of art and human expression with the best of them.

I think I used to feel pretty similar to the opinions you're expressing, actually. I think my views kind of flipped the moment I actually 'got' Andy Warhol. For years and years I just couldn't stand anything he had done. I just couldn't see how he got away with calling it Art... For some reason, one day it just clicked that he was pointing out how stupid it is to label things Art or not-Art... I know it seems pretty obvious in hind-sight, but it was a major revelation for me at the time. But it seems to me that a majority of art critics will call anything 'higher-art' just to justify their existence as critics. Why do so many deny comics the right to be considered 'higher-art?' Well... they aren't getting paid to.

That's just me being a cynic, though.

And Art vs. Craft? Don't even get me started. I don't agree with the idea that they should be seperate. I think that the segregation of the two ideas is what's led to the homogenization of American culture (the Wal-Martization, if you will.) That's a totally different argument, though.

ozoneocean

Tantz Aerine
Ergo, taking the time and effort to argue for or against his opinion would be trying to argue with water for taking the shape of the receptacle it is currently in.

That's brilliant :)

*takes a bow* I thank thee sir Ozoneocean!

KoS I recommend you read Will Eisners comics... and I recommend you check out Dr. Seuss's old work. And by old work - I mean his work from the forties. The stuff before the super cartoonish stuff.

I don't mean to continue this argument, but I think that you still haven't seen true comic and cartoon gold yet. And if you have, you haven't appreciated it.
I had the opportunity this summer to hang out with the artists from here: http://www.theblvdstudio.com/ (Sean Chen, TLE, Bernard Chang, JPL, and Goring)
And I got a chance to hang out with http://www.tommyleeedwards.com a professional 14+ year comic book artist. He spends ours - HELL - all of those guys spend hours planning thier layouts. Not only that they make sure not to break the rules of making comics (Like the 180 degree rule - which is also a filming rule, and no Tangents rule among many other rules).
These guys even go as far as the masters in planning composition in each panel. They plan the lighting and even the colors to a certain degree (Tommy does all of his colors though and his inking for that matter).
Not only do comic artists have to be able to storytell they have to plan composition to help their story along. They have to plan the layouts so that they show the progression of time and space. They plan everything to the last detail. They make a 2D universe just for the viewers pleasure.

No I don't think that every story that these guys do is comic gold! But they don't write the stories, they storytell them for others - because that's their friggen job. They spend a horribly huge amount of their time just making sure each page is it's best.
And maybe if you just look once you can't really see the interesting little things that make the stuff they do master work. But you gotta look again, with an open mind.

I'm not saying you should change your opinion KoS! Not at all!!! I just think that you share the same opinion with your dad, just because he's your dad. Maybe my assumption about you is wrong.

But I still think you should really do some research and actually talk to real professionals (Ozone would be a good start). Understand that they work as hard for perfection and symbolism in their work like any Rockefeller, or Egon Schiele, or Degas, or Masterwhatever out there.

To sort of build on what Conroy's saying: There's a great book out called Panel Discussions that going into a lot of the thought process behind making comics-- from the vantage point of all kinds of professionals, pencillers, inkers, letterers, and editors. There's a lot of talk about building composition-- how to use shadows, assymetry (woah, can't spell today,) panel layout, and word balloon placement to tell a better story. Probably not as fun and interactive as getting to actually hang out with the folks in person, but still a great read and resource for anyone interested in developing comic skills.

ConroyConroy
I'm not saying you should change your opinion KoS! Not at all!!! I just think that you share the same opinion with your dad, just because he's your dad. Maybe my assumption about you is wrong.

I actually don't know what my father's opinion's on the subjecy are, I've never actually discussed it with him. And I tried to distinguish that I was talking about cartoonish art, not nessecarily comics, because I'm well aware that there are comics that push the envelope in such a way that anyone who didn't consider it art would be a fool. Frank Miller's Sin City is one (bad) example. It captures the suspens of noir on paper, and whether you like the actual book or not, you gotta consider some of his pages art, no matter who you are.

No I'm talking about cartoonish figures

(He has a rule. CCC. nothing cute...nothing cartoon...nothing copied. Comic fall under cartoons...and in some cases cute.)

and even then I realize that there IS cartoon stuff that you could easily argue is high art, but I think that it's the exception, not the rule, the nature of the characters isn't to be deep and reflect multiple opposing archetypes, it's meant to delight. Theres people who use this to their advantage, and who push the envelope and use the nature of the style against a composition's message to really do something deep, but it's an uphill battle.

Aeon
And coming from a theatre background, I can BS my way through an argument on the nature of art and human expression with the best of them.

I got ya beat. I was an english major and a latin minor, and all my elective courses were philosophy, had my school allowed a double major I'd have a degree in that too. In my last class in college, the final exam was oral, as in I would sit in a room, alone with the professor, he would ask me questions on the literature we studied in class and I would tell him about it. The idea was, he'd be able to tell how much I'd read, it was the purpose of his final being like that. I didn't read ANY of the books for that class. instead, an hour before the final I went to Barnes & Nobels and read the BACKS OF THE BOOKS I didn't have time to even skim the cliff notes. I went into the final and at the end of it he said, vebatim: "I was a little worried about how you do because you're sometimes a little quiet in class, but you know your stuff, you've clearly read all of these books"

It was my proudest academic moment.

I'm going to leave the discussion to you guys now.

ConroyConroy
talk to real professionals (Ozone would be a good start).

Thanks for the implied compliment ConcoyConroy, but I've never done comic art proffessionally/comercially. My background is fine art and graphic design.

ConroyConroy
My advice to you: if the subject ever comes up. Just ignore him. Most Highschool art teachers and college teachers (with the exception with Proffessional and Acredited Art Schools - and Art schools in Europe) aren't really that great. Most can't even draw as good as most comic book artists out there. And they can even be less creative in some cases.

;_;

I know I'm going to sound a tad bit defensive but that's because I'm currently studying to be an art teacher myself. I had a similar conversation with my brother yesterday who suggested that a professor isn't really a teacher because a teacher (high school/elementary) can't really be philosophical and knowledgable but a professor can.

I told him that when he was in grade 9, the real question isn't whether or not his teacher can teach him calculus but whether or not as a grade 9 student, he can learn calculus. And if he was taught calculus anyway, how would he feel? Would his math teacher be a good teacher if he taught them calculus anyway knowing full well that his students probably didn't possess the necessary math skills to understand?

I faced the same problem when I was planning lessons for my grade 9 art class. We're doing a unit on comics and I was using Understanding Comics and How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way as references. I've drawn comics before and I've taught art at a private art school for over 3 years. The issue wasn't whether I knew enough to teach a decent beginner's lesson on comics. It's how much my students can digest before they freak out and become discouraged.

I'm not suggesting that all art teachers are amazing and knowledgable. What I am suggesting is that before you dismiss an art teacher as just not being good enough, think real hard about why.

As for me...I don't have a problem with narrative art being called art. I only have an issue with comics when that's all a student draws. If you're seriously considering a career in comics, then you should try to establish a good foundation. Drawing Naruto and Bleach characters are not the best way to go about it.

i don't draw comics, i draw sequential art with a story...i wish there was a word for that. oh! i know... "graphic novel"

I can see his pushing you away from comics and cartoons in art exercises if he's really trying to teach you the fundamentals of art. But that's just class assignments. For him to classify those thigs as "low class art" is ignorant, as everyone before has been saying... but there is one thing... You'll never find a picture of Calvin and Hobbes in an art museum. And as much as I think Calvin's as artistically valid as a sculpture or painting, I'm fine with him not being in an art museum. Why is that?

I think rather than having "high class art" and "low class art" (with the value those names imply) the classifications should be "fine art" and "contemporary art". Fine art would be art more focused on the philosphies of art and the exploration of art's rules (or lack of) and would include those great masterpieces from Da Vinci, O'Keefe, Michaelangelo, Picasso, or whoever. Contemporary art would be more mass-produced, or tailored to appeal to those who aren't exactly art connoseiurs. Contemporary art would be just as valid as fine art, but would have the chance of one day becoming fine art if it broke new ground and had a lasting impression (even cubism was once that trendy new style people were trying out).

low art IMO is abstract art, but if i was a teacher i wouldn't tell them that. i would want to let them decide that for themselves

"I've read through your entire piece and simply can not agree.

Fair enough.

"I've always felt the whole "craft" idea to be a total nonsense as well; realistically it's far too broad and lumps together completely disparate fields with "creative application of skill" as the only common denominator."

To my way of thinking, the common denominator of all crafts is that they can be objectively evaluated (a pot with no bottom=a bad pot, a comic that doesn't tell its story/make its point=a bad comic), while distinguishing good from bad Art is borderline impossible.

"In practise it's generally used to snobbishly, ignorantly segregate lesser understood, less popular artforms away into a safer category."

Yes, and it's exactly that minimization of the importance of craft that I'm arguing against. The tactic is used by Artists trying to protect their position as part of a cultural elite. That the term "craft" is used dismissively by some, and that dismissal is accepted by many, is a reversal of common sense, and the heart of my argument. The thing that has a function (a piece of craft) is being dismissed precisely because it has a function, while the thing that has no real use to anyone but its creator (a piece of art) is put on a pedestal as somehow morally or intellectually superior.

"The "anything can be art" idea only holds water if you can sell it. The art world is defined by two forces: the market and the critics. Academics, despite their fondest wishes and grandest expectations, are and always will remain on the fringes."

Again, this depends on the definition of art, which we don't agree upon. In this case, I propose that it's your definition that's too narrow. I see art or at least potential art literally everywhere, while you seem to be saying that a form of self-expression doesn't qualify as art unless someone can by it or a member of a cultural elite (be they critic or academic) recognize it as such. That may be a valid definition for you, and if it is, that's fine; for me, it seems extremely arbitrary and limited in scope.

"As I said before, "When you're talking about art, there are examples at EVERY level, in EVERY sphere that could be considered "less than worthy", -for various reasons.""

Yes, and I bet I could find an art critic or academic that could invalidate any of those reasons if they had a mind to. Because, at its base, art as it's currently defined is not craft--there is no means of objective evaluation for it in modern society.

"And that's basically it! Forget trying to come up with definitions, that's for art students just starting out who're unsure of their place in things."

I'm very sure of my place in things and I'm not "trying to come up with definitions"--I've got my definitions, and if there's going to be any kind of meaningful discussion of the matter, all sides need to understand what is meant when the term "art" is used. "Forget trying to come up with definitions"? How can there possibly be a meaningful exchange of ideas if your black is my white and vice versa? For the sake of a discussion, some kind of consensus needs to be reached about exactly what's being discussed, doesn't it?

"Instead, simply realise that if you want to make an artistic statement you can do it through and as part of anything, and you can make that sell and even get grants for it if you sell it right."

Are you defining grants as part of the market forces mentioned above?

In any event, yes, you can make an artistic statement with literally anything; you can also make an artistic statement with literally nothing. Which is why Art means little to me while craft is of the utmost importance.

"-And narrative art is just as good as anything else for that purpose... Seen many plays? Watched many films? Jebus, Artists work through songs, even video games!"

I don't think we're that far apart, philosophically--it's the terminology that seems to be giving us problems. What you call narrative art I call narrative craft, simply because the term craft implies the possibility of objective evaluation. My point is that these craftsmen you refer to may use the media you mention to make an artistic statement, BUT that statement is secondary to the creation of what can be objectively critiqued as a piece of craft.

It's a semantic argument, I'll admit, but again, when discussing these things, it's important that an agreement be reached on what is meant by certain terms. For the sake of the discussion, I'm perfectly happy to accept what I perceive to be your premise: that Art is defined by certain cultural institutions and that art can therefore be considered good or bad based on the opinions of those institutions. I prefer my definition, which is that there's no such thing as good or bad art, art just is and has no real value to someone other than the artist, but that a craft works within a structure that can be objectively assessed and can therefore be assigned a value based on non-subjective criteria.

Honestly, I think we're pretty much on the same page, just using different dictionaries.

"Not every video game is a noteworthy piece of art, not many at all, but they do exist."

Out of curiosity, who defines what is noteworthy?

"Not because the form doesn't lend itself to artistic expression, but simply because it's not a popular form for that use! Films, plays, and novels are however, but that doesn't mean they can't also be used for base entertainment as well, does it? And it's exactly the same with comics."

Sure. I agree fully with you on everything in the above paragraph. My basic point is simply that a shitty comic could be considered a great piece of Art (by someone using my definition of Art) but not a great piece of craft (as I define it), while a great comic could potentially be both.

A

nyah? @-@ Wow so many logical and resonable arguments!

@-@

I'll just poke in my opinion and watch it get burned.

TO me, comics are what help the animators get started. It inspires movie producers to make a movie. If it weren't for comics, we artists would be bored to hell with just single page artwork. :/ How else are we to pass time away?

Draw. Just draw. If it keeps you happy why should it be Low quality? Hell there are quite a few artist who blow my mind away with their stories and art work!

Besides, a comic is not just art. It's a STORY.

:)

(edit) Besides, I perfer Burger King to McDonalds. ^.^