Art or Gimmick?

Why doesn't Coop love me?

I love him. Or at least his artwork. Well, most of it, that is. It reminds me of my childhood affection for comic books, hot rods, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and Pop Art. I even visit Coop's blog, Positive Ape Index, on a daily basis.

Coop's artwork should probably be considered Pop Art. His subject matter is definitely "Pop". Devil girls, hot rods, motorcycle helmets, video game joysticks, etc. are all pop culture icons, and these are the things that Coop paints. Is his work gimmick, however? He does sell quite a bit of his artwork in various forms. I have one of his Qee keychain figures. But does his merchandise in all of its various forms make his work gimmick? His original artwork is very clean and stylized, and also fairly expensive for its size and subject matter. Do other comic book artists sell their inked comic book pages for these kinds of prices. Probably some of the golden age stuff, but what about today's crew? Could my friend Jacen take his pre-production pages and sell them for thousands of dollars? His stuff is at least as good as Coop's, in terms of its illustrative qualities.

I still don't know whether I would put Coop in the gimmick category. He is similar to Dalek in a lot of aspects, which makes it hard to categorize him as gimmick. The difference is that Coop calls himself an "artist", the first sentence on his website is, "Coopstuff is an art site, featuring the art of COOP." He doesn't call his work "commercial art" or "consumer art", yet it is clearly intended for mass-consumption. I think he may be a gimmick.

Coop sells his work in any form available to him, from books to tattoo flash to toys. Nothing under the sun is off limits. I guess this is a good way for an artist to make a living, but is it an honest way? Has his work become stagnant and repetitive? The themes and style of his work are all very similar. So I will go ahead and say that his work is gimmick. Come on Coop, bring it on! You can't faze me.

posted by Limited Ed. @ 11:52 AM