Louvre to feature comics for the first time

We love our comics here in the U.S. of A., but certain stereotypes have lingered about the artistic pretensions of the wine-and-cheese set across the Atlantic. Well, at long last we can congratulate ourselves on the good taste that compelled us to keep those boxes of Annie Oakley issues secreted in the attic (not to mention the handsome hardcover edition of Watchmen.) That bulwark of Western European high culture, the Louvre Museum, is at long last putting in exhibits on comics.

The exhibition, titled "Small Design: The Louvre invites Comics," opened last week. The display will eventually feature comics from five authors, three of which are already complete: Glacial Period by Nicolas de Crecy, Marc-Antoine Mathieu's The Basement of the Louvre and Eric Liberge's Odd Hours.

Louvre curator Fabrice Douar claims the initiative has nothing to do with an attempt to "modernize" the Louvre or to "legitimize" the comics-as-art debate, nor to draw younger crowds: "We wanted to present this art with the goal of showing its aesthetic quality, but also its quality in the sense of the confrontation between the world of the Louvre and this alternate universe, which is that of comics... Just like comics are not only fun or for entertainment, the Louvre equally is not dusty and boring."

Inexorably, we inch closer to our long dreamed-of Calvin & Hobbes museum. It may be a while before a Rembrandt and a Neil Gaiman can sit side-by-side, but it's a start.

Related links:
Feature: Female Characters in Comics
News: The battle for Watchmen finally ends
CSMonitor.com: POW! ZOWIE! Scholars discover the comic book

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