Popular (designed for a mass audience)Transient (short-term solution)Expendable (easily-forgotten)Low costMass producedYoung (aimed at youth)WittySexyGimmickyGlamorousBig Business

From a letter to Peter and Allison Smithson, 1957

Richard Hamilton’s Characteristics of Pop Art

“I object to popularity!”

Desire, pastel on paper, 2007

“I object to art being expendable!”

The Contemplation, charcoal on paper, 2007

“I object to Pop Art’s source of inspiration!”A style of art which seeks its inspiration from commercial art and items of mass culture (such as comic strips, popular foods and brand-name packaging),

random web definition, 2008

The Meditation, charcoal on blue paper, 2007

From an Art News interview with Gene Swenson, 1963-1964

The Understanding, charcoal on paper, 2007

“I want everybody to think alike. I think everybody should be a machine.”

— Andy Warhol

“I object that the cartoon is an Anti-art Symbol!”

DB: … You're still very much a man of irony. When you first started, you picked on Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Were they arbitrary choices, or did you feel there was some inherent information in those two?

RL: They were so far from serious abstract expressionism that they embodied everything. They were done mechanically, but they represent something everybody loves. A number of artists have done things with Mickey Mouse—including Oldenburg and Warhol. He's such an American symbol, and such an anti-art symbol.

Roy Lichenstein Interview w/ David Bowie, Jan. 1998

“The Counter Pop Evolution”The Masked Woman Series, 2007-2009

The Believers, pastel on paper, 2008

Cartoons as the Original Self

Regalo #2, oil on wood panel, in progress

Regalo #2 “Final Sketch on paper

Approx. 5 Generations to get to a final sketch

“The Cartoon is the New Figurative.”

Regalo Modelo #1, Photoshop Composite, 2008

Model Shot for Regalo#1

“Cartoons are rooted in Classical Art.”

Regalo, turnaround, 2008 Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man

“The Cartoon can transcend from classical to modernity”.

Regalo#1, oil on wood panel, in progress

The Cartoon Transcends Pop Culture’s American Stereotypes

The Descension, pastel on paper, 2008 Kara Walker, Cut Paper, 2006