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Art by Harry Lucey

About six weeks ago I strolled over to MoCCA here in New York to see The Art of Archie Comics, an exhibition devoted to “one of the oldest and most beloved family-friendly brands in the comic book industry.” There are some fine Harry Lucey pages. Gorgeous Dan DeCarlo examples. But something is missing on the walls: art credits. There are no attributions to be found except on a rather confusing handout available by request at the desk. What little information there is about the material on display is written in a kind of corporate press-release speak, filled with misinformation (or outright untruths, like the notion that John Goldwater was the sole creator of Archie) and nicely omitting (a) the notoriously shabby way the company treated its artists (artists who still don’t receive credit in the various reprints) and (b) the rather “interesting” fact that the company has retained all, or most, of its original art.

To me, this is dark, sad stuff. Archie Comics has a great artistic legacy—one worth examining. But it’s been over two decades since the Kirby v. Marvel fight, and over a decade since the nasty business over Dan DeCarlo came to light. We all understand (or should) the financial and moral issues at play and I’m not going to reprise them here. In the case of DeCarlo, a man who made Archie millions of dollars was fired in his twilight years and denied any share in the characters he created. It’s somewhat grotesque to use his work to “celebrate” the company without even acknowledging the issues at play. Was DeCarlo’s family invited to contribute to or comment on the show? Were any of the deceased artists’ families asked?

I was reluctant to even write this piece, since, in some ways, it’s barely worth addressing. Obviously the Archie show is not intended as history in any intellectually serious way, but it’s hosted and organized by MoCCA, which is, in fact, the only “museum” of comics on the East Coast. I happily curated a show at MoCCA and support its mission in the abstract. The medium needs institutional support. But it needs to be serious support. This startling lack of scholarship and disregard for the moral rights of artists was, I imagine and hope, unconscious and not malicious—I doubt anyone at MoCCA even knew about or researched the situation. But that’s not much of an excuse.

I wrote to MoCCA with questions about all of the above issue, but aside from an invitation to come to the museum and chat, which I couldn’t fit into my schedule, I wasn’t able to get a response via email or phone.

Situations like this are complicated. MoCCA is cash-strapped and I would imagine (well, I hope) that MoCCA received some kind of donation for hosting the show. Museums are hardly temples of virtue and must work with corporate sponsors to survive. The problem here, though, is that the museum is actually furthering a historically and morally dubious agenda. But look, what am I going to do about it? As a publisher, I plan to exhibit at the MoCCA Festival because it’s part of my business, despite, in some ways, my reluctance to support the program anymore. So I don’t exactly have much moral ground.

Giving MoCCA the benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume The Art of Archie Comics is part of a steep learning curve, and that the museum and its board will, in the future, look more closely at the issues at play around historical work and try a bit harder to remember men like Dan DeCarlo.