The Cartoon Art Museum: a Place Where Words and Images Collide

On Saturday, November 6, Pixel (the graphic design club at UCD) went on a brief trip down to San Francisco to take a look at the Cartoon Art Museum.  It's always an adventure going down to the city, especially with one way streets galore.  But after looking for a god 20 minutes for a parking spot, we managed to find our way to the smaller-than-expected Cartoon Museum.


Credit to Google Images
There were a few different exhibits going on at the same time.  When we went, there was the exhibit "Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women" and "The Editorial Art of KAL from The Economist".  There were also a lot more examples, such as sketches from Jeff Smith's Bone.


Credit to Jeff Smith
However, I must say that my favorite exhibit had to have been Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher's exhibit.  Not only were the political cartoons hilarious, but the artistry involved was especially impressive to me just because of the caricatures.


Credit to Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher
There is so much involved in making words and pictures interact.  In these cartoonists' case, it's all about being able to communicate to their audience through precise wording as well as artistic recreations of these words.  It could also be the other way around: the concepts could have started with the images and had words added to them to make complete sense of the entire piece.
Comics have their own way of showing continuous movement through images and words in ink.  They have multiple genres, so everyone has something to enjoy.  However, they are also expressions of their creators: while they all have distinguishing characteristics that dictate the way they flow or the message they communicate, they all involve images and words.  These images and words interact in ways that can only be understood by the audience.  In this way, they take their own form in the audience's individual mind, but their main form will always consist of images and words.