Comics at the EMERGEncy Room

Robert Boyd

Tomorrow I will be opening a small exhibit of comics art from my personal collection at the EMERGEncy Room gallery at Rice University (it's on the fourth floor of Sewell Hall, one floor up from where the Rice Gallery is). I've hastily assembled a website for it--please excuse the typos and badly color-corrected images!

I will have a lot more to say in my talk at 7 pm, and the website I've assembled has a lot of information on individual artists. But briefly, I want to say that this is another small tap on the wall that surrounds the art world when it comes to recognizing comics art as a visual art worth considering--and collecting. It's why I curated the exhibit of Jim Woodring and Marc Bell art at Lawndale Art Center a few years back. It's why I occasionally write about comics for this blog. I invite all  readers of Pan will come by tomorrow evening for the opening, and if you can't make it, the show will remain up until April 11.

Here are a few pieces that are included in the exhibit:


Chester Gould, Dick Tracy, February 2, 1947


Gene Ahern, Room and Board, June 19, 1938


Alison Bechdel, Dykes to Watch Out For“Boy Trouble,” March 4, 1999


Jaime Hernandez, Love & Rockets“Locas vs Locos” p. 6,  1986

This exhibit would not have been possible without Christopher Sperandio, assitant professor of painting and drawing at Rice University and himself a bona fide Kartoon King.