cartoons

[TheRoyalist]

Can certain cartoons be called high art? Is there a market for cartoon literature i.e. cartoon novels without animation or drawings?

[OrphanPip]

In Japan very popular comics occasionally spawn novelizations, but I wouldn't call these high art. They probably aren't even read by anyone other than the die hard fans of the comics.

[mtpspur]

Probably true--I have some Judge Dredd novels based on England's premeire character from 2000 AD but I would hesitate to call them fine art. Let alone novels based on DC and Marvel characters though the Blackhawk novel from the 70s is a cherished item you don't see very often.

[dfloyd]

cartoons drawns as, what his collectors called fine art, with dots like in the comics and words such as POW! and BAM! lettered in. I don't know what they are worth now, but his type of art, termed pop art, sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in its hay day.

[Drkshadow03]

Can certain cartoons be called high art? Is there a market for cartoon literature i.e. cartoon novels without animation or drawings?

Like "Charlie the Purple Giraffe was Acting Strangely" by David Levine?

[TheRoyalist]

Thanks all for the replies,

The cartoons I was thinking of were the Tom and Jerry variety and not Marvel/DC etc. graphic novels or manga. How difficult it must be for a writer to narrate a tale from these animations; all the laws of physics would go out the window. I am suprised no budding author has attempted this feat. It might not be Booker prize-winning material but there is massive scope for experimentation. Throughout all this I am being deadly serious, honest.

[Wilde woman]

I'm not sure if graphic novels are considered "high art", but some of them have made it onto university curricula. I've had friends in undergraduate Poli Sci classes read and study Maus by Art Spiegelman; it's a graphic novel about the Holocaust. And, impressively, it won Pulitzer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus

And more recently, some classes have read Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_%28comics%29

[blp]

This e-novel is by a former comic book artist: http://rodkierkegaard.blogspot.com/ It's set in a bizarre future in which holograms of famous cartoon characters read the news.

[hellsapoppin]

I have always felt that if cartoons were to be construed as "high art", then Thomas Nast's work should be classified among the best:





His work was political but it brought about social reforms and society became better for it.

[Drkshadow03]

Thanks all for the replies,

The cartoons I was thinking of were the Tom and Jerry variety and not Marvel/DC etc. graphic novels or manga. How difficult it must be for a writer to narrate a tale from these animations; all the laws of physics would go out the window. I am suprised no budding author has attempted this feat. It might not be Booker prize-winning material but there is massive scope for experimentation. Throughout all this I am being deadly serious, honest.

Actually the Charlie and the Purple Giraffe story does pretty much that. It writes a metafictional short story as if the characters were cartoons from a comic strip (okay, so that's a little different). The comic strip characters, however, become self-aware and aware of the audience if I remember the story correctly. It was the closest thing I could think of.