Some who’ve read my recent posts “A few words in defense of Jack Kirby, Sal Buscema, Irv Novick, and other anonymized artists“, “A few further thoughts on the artwork of Sharon Moody,” “Brian Bolland’s brilliantly blistering rebuttal,” and “Why a comic book isn’t a Hershey’s bar” seem to have gotten the erroneous impression that I’ve have a thing against mashups, smashups, allusions, sampling, remixing, tributes, homages, or whatever word you’d prefer to use for the act of performing alchemy on existing works to make something new.

Hey, I’ve got no problem with any of those acts—I’ve committed many of them myself. But I do believe one should always act honestly, openly, and with full disclosure, especially when one is borrowing from another artist who could be considered il miglior fabbro.

I actually love that kind of comics-related art when done appropriately. Here are some examples that intrigue or entertain me rather than offend.

You should make a habit of visiting the Covered blog, where contemporary artists reinterpret classic (and some not so classic) comics covers.

Check out Brodie H. Brockie’s take on Flash #175.

One thing to note is that beneath these images, in addition to crediting Brockie, Covered also stated, “Original cover by Carmine Infantino and Mike Esposito; DC 1967.” The correct and classy thing to do.

Another site I visit often is The Brave and the Bold: The Lost Issues, which creates covers for imaginary encounters of comics characters who never had a chance to meet in that classic title.

Here’s a fun recent mash-up that puts Batman together with the early Avengers.

Another sort of mash-up that doesn’t bother me is when comics characters are inserted into fine art paintings, as when Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 was merged with Batman (seen here in octopede’s entry to a Worth1000 competition).

The title of the piece, Batman Descending, gives nods to all the right places, especially since it’s not any individual artist’s interpretation of Batman.

And then there’s the amazing R. Sikoryak, who has been producing loving and inventive mash-ups for a long time, such as this one of Superman with Camus’ The Stranger.

By now you might be thinking, well, Edelman, that’s all well and good, but these are folks who already have one foot in the comics world commenting on that field. What about when the eyes of an artist coming from the gallery world looks our way? Ironically enough, Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik’s 2010 exhibition asked the very question that can pop into the minds of those who love comics when they see a fine arts invasion—You Did WHAT to My Comics?

In an interview with Proxart magazine, Brynjegard-Bialik explained what he’s getting at with his papercut art:

My current work incorporates bits and pieces of cut-up comic books as backgrounds and textures for my papercuts. My intention is to draw parallels between the predominantly Jewish-created mythologies of comic books and the bible, exploring the stories of the Jewish tradition.

Incredible Tree, a papercut interpretation of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, includes cut-up panels that contain the Hulk.

The piece is not a wholesale, unattributed taking, and it explored intriguing issues, so even though It might not be the kind of thing I’d hang on my own wall, I do find it interesting, and it doesn’t bother me a bit.

I could go on … but I think this is enough that you get the idea. I’d never want to stop any artist from being playful, experimental, and even, yes, “transformative,” though I’m still not entirely sure what that really means. I’d just like them, when they do look into the history of comics and borrow from the best, to at least say thanks.