True Art Is Incomprehensible: Difference between revisions

== Comic Books ==

* Some of [[Alan Moore]]'s work can fall into this, if he's allowed to go all out. Most notably ''[[Promethea]]'', although the ending of ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]: Black Dossier'' has a bit of this going on as well.

** One might say that ALL of Alan Moore's work has at least a foot in this trope. Even fairly straightforward works like ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' or ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' have a good number of cryptic passages.

** The text pieces at the end of the ''League'' volumes are pretty much impossible to figure out without annotations, or at least having Wikipedia and Google open on your browser.

* Some attribute this trope to [[Grant Morrison]] (or at least to some of his works):

** "Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers."

{{quote|-- [[Grant Morrison]], in a ''Wizard'' magazine interview}}

** The final issue of ''[[Final Crisis]]'' received many complaints of this nature, partly due to the unusually non-linear structure of the story, and partly because some readers skipped Morrison-written tie-ins that explained much about what was going on. (Morrison considered the tie-ins an integral part of the story, and they were ultimately included as part of the ''[[Final Crisis]]'' trade collections.)

** His ''[[Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth]]'' is a mixture of surrealism, symbolism, occultism, and [[Batman]].

* ''[[Like a Velvet Glove Cast In Iron]]'' is a perfect example of this. Between a mutated fish girl, cops whose hobby is beating the shit out of people and then carving smiley faces in their feet, a dog with no head and no other orifices, a cult leader who is constantly naked for no real reason, a young girl who makes snuff films and "What's the frequency Kenneth?" it is a wonder that anyone made heads or tails of it.

* Invoked in ''Amazing [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' #22, where Peter Parker exclaims "If that's art then I'm glad I'm a science major" upon seeing a gallery of pop art (one of which is just a painting of a toe with a band-aid on it), while a hippie nearby says "I wish I could draw like that". [[Spider-Man]] co-creator [[Steve Ditko]] also voiced his disdain for pop-art in issues of ''The [[Blue Beetle]]'' and ''[[The Question]]'', even creating a villain named [[Straw Character|Boris Ebar]], an art critic and liberal politician who used pop art to spread decadence. Ditko's reasoning for Ebar's motivation was that he, hippies, and liberals weren't "manly" enough to appreciate traditional art.

* In his last, unfinished comic book ''[[Tintin/Recap/Tintin and Alph Art|Tintin and Alph-Art]]'', Hergé wanted Tintin to deal with the modern art business. The Alph-Art mentioned is a new style which depicts nothing but big letters. And Captain Haddock was even supposed to become a fan of it.

** Then again, ''Tintin and Alph-Art'' had Haddock growing hashish at Marlinspike/Moulinsart, so that might explain a lot.

* [[Frank]] by Jim Woodring has a quite a dreamlike atmosphere.

* Parodied in the [[Carl Barks]] [[Scrooge McDuck]] story "Hound of the Whiskervilles", where Scrooge gets big in modern art by painting his clan's tartan.

* [[Scott McCloud]]'s ''[[Understanding Comics]]'' discusses an entertaining aversion to demonstrate the importance of context: An enormous square of canvas with two tiny right triangles at the center of the top and bottom edges. Its name? {{spoiler|''The Big N'', which is in fact precisely what the painting is.}}

* ''[[The Sandman]]'': Delirium's realm, and her story in "Endless Nights", are, well...the living embodiments of delirium and insanity.

** Also, the series occasionally can only vaguely and confusedly explain things because human minds and language cannot comprehend the truth behind it. For example, Dream is his realm, he is the centre of his realm. His castle is the centre of his realm. Fiddler's Green is a sentient field, that is the centre of his realm. Apparently, all of the above are completely true. There's more than one centre, of things, so we are told.

** And that stories can be factually wrong, but more true for it.

* This trope is why ''[[Rudi]]'''s buddy Freddy accidentally destroys one art installation, thinking it was the buffet. Also, a woman at said vernissage:

{{quote|'''Woman''': "What a great piece of art! I could look at it all the time!"

'''Rudi''' (thinking): "I don't have the heart to tell her it's just a mirror." }}

* This trope was already so over-used by 1966 that it was parodied and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in an [[Archie Comics]] story by writer Frank Doyle. Veronica paints a terrible abstract painting which Archie almost drops on the ground... until Jughead stops him, saying "come on, Arch, leave us not be so corny!"

{{quote|'''Jughead''': You fall, smear the painting, it gets hung upside down...

'''Betty''': Of course! And it wins a blue ribbon!

'''Jughead''': Right! [[This Is Reality|this is real life, man!]] Stuff like that only happens in books!

'''Betty''': I'll bet I've read that story a hundred times! }}