ART COMIC - MATTHEW THURBER

Turns out one of the comics collected in the “Best American” book I just read was available in full from the local library. ART COMIC wouldn’t have been my first choice, if I could have read any of the selections from “Best American” in full, but free is free and I’ll take what I can get. In general, I’d say I like art-world parody stuff, things like “Velvet Buzzsaw” or “Art School Confidential”. It isn’t a world I know a ton about. For a while I hung out with an aspiring art world couple and their gallery-owner/artist friends in Mexico City and the whole milieu certainly seemed rife for parody. ART COMIC does this stuff pretty well but is much better when it’s weirder. Their are parts where characters are shipwrecked or meet God in heaven, etc. and I found those sections much stronger than the parts that are a more direct parody of galleries and gallery-owners and Art School satire. It is, however, during one in one of these sections a background character says, “from a Lacanian point of view, doing coke off a mirror becomes very interesting” which is an amazing line. During this period in Mexico City I did once do cocaine while an artist went on and on about Lacan. Truly, life does imitate art. 5 conceptual art masterpieces.