MUSEUM REVIEW : Fullerton Comic Collection Stresses Art but Doesn’t Exclude the <i> POW</i> !!

Unlike, say, abstract Expressionism, the comic book is not an acquired taste--either you still like them or you don’t. If you don’t, there’s little intellectual cachet in pretending that you do. Nevertheless, the Fullerton Museum Center’s current exhibition, “The Art of the Comic Book,” should appeal to more than just kids and collectors; anyone with an interest in pop culture can enjoy this brief look at the comic book’s checkered history.

The show, which closes Saturday, begins with the comic book’s ancestors--newspaper comic strips, advertising giveaways and pulp magazines--then goes through the so-called Golden Age of the 1940s and early ‘50s and extends only as far as the mid-’70s, when this exhibition was assembled by the Erie Art Center in Pennsylvania.

It includes works by superb illustrators, including Bill Elder and Jack Davis (Mad magazine), Berni Wrightson (“Swamp Thing”) and Steve Ditko (“Spider-Man”), among many others. The pieces, usually single pages from a book, occasionally a complete story, range from metaphysical science fiction to “Conan the Barbarian.”

The show’s best pieces, though, are those from the Golden Age, when comic illustration was at its most exuberant and stories their most pungent. Will Eisner’s “The Spirit,” dazzlingly illustrated stories about a Shadow-like crime fighter in trench coat and porkpie hat, exemplifies the era.

Eisner was as vigorous a writer as he was an illustrator. His stories, usually moody nighttime affairs featuring gorgeous dames and squinty-eyed hoods, evoke James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler; you could almost call “The Spirit” comics noir .

Compared to some of the other Golden Age artists, though, Eisner’s work is restrained. Comic books bearing such titles as “Crime Does Not Pay” and “Crime SuspenStories” offered lurid covers and visceral tales of ax murders, vigilantes and the ever-present homicidally vengeful spurned lover. The show contains several of these, along with patriotic World War II comic books, Wild West adventure stories and fuzzy animal tales by Walt Disney and others.

The cleverest writing and illustration, however, appears in the books published by EC (for “Educational Comics”), the precursor of Mad magazine. A compelling example of EC’s intellectual approach to comics is Bernie Krigstein’s 1955 story, “Master Race,” about a former German concentration camp commander haunted by images of those he murdered. The story shows that comics could handle sensitive topics with tact and power, something that Art Spiegelman recently demonstrated again with his acclaimed Holocaust parable, “Maus.”

EC made its mark, however, with biting parodies of 1950s cultural icons. These stories (“Howdy Dooit!” and “Superduperman” are on display) reveal a deep resentment of the conformist cultural atmosphere of the 1950s. Not surprisingly, it was the social climate of the McCarthy era that led to the suppression of the comic book as a worthwhile art form.

Saying the violent and vaguely subversive themes of comic books were threatening the nation’s youth, Fredric Wertham’s 1953 book, “Seduction of the Innocent,” sparked an anti-comics movement among parents and educators. Publishers cravenly responded by instituting self-censorship: They created the Comics Code Authority, which reviewed all works before publication to ensure that they did not contain, according to a museum guide, “displays of corrupt authority, successful crimes, happy criminals, the triumph of evil over good, violence, concealed weapons, the death of a policeman, sensual females, divorce, illicit sexual relations, narcotics or drug addiction, physical afflictions, poor grammar and the use of the words ‘crime,’ ‘horror’ and ‘terror’ in the title of a magazine or story.”

Predictably, both violence and sensual females managed to remain in comic books; what was squeezed out was creativity. Until very recently, comic books would be dominated by simplistic super-heroes fighting sinister super-villains. Illustrators and writers with more to say than “pow” and “ka-rumph” looked for other fields in which to display their talents.

The result can be seen in the post-Comics Code works, which make up half of the exhibit. By the 1970s, comics had reached their nadir in both art and content. In illustration, caricature was replaced by an overmuscled hyper-realism, while stories devolved into a humorless, arcane sub-genre inaccessible to those not addicted to comics.

This is an unfortunate place for the exhibit to leave off because recent years have seen a remarkable renaissance in the comic book form. Ambitious new works--such as Spiegelman’s “Maus,” Frank Miller’s apocalyptic Batman revival, “The Dark Knight,” and Dave Stevens’ 1930s send-up, “The Rocketeer”--have reinvigorated comics and brought them new respect. Walking away from the exhibit without seeing the new work being done, you can get the feeling that comic books are a dead art.

The exhibit makes several other omissions as well: Early Marvel comics are included; early “Batman” and “Superman” are not. Wholly ignored are the ribald underground comics of the 1960s, when artists such as R. Crumb both celebrated and satirized the counterculture. And while the notes on the individual pieces are fairly informative, the exhibition materials make no reference to the wider influences comics have had, whether on movies and TV or on the work of modern such artists as Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol. There is no exhibition catalogue.

Still, like the art it celebrates, the Fullerton exhibit is at least diverting and at best provocative. And with an admission price of $2, it’s even cheaper than buying a new comic book.

“The Art of the Comic Book” continues through Saturday at Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave. Hours today: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Information: (714) 738-6545.