The Blighted Eye is the most copious, the most diverse, and the most lavish
compilation of original comic art ever published all from the mind-boggling
collection of Glenn Bray. Bray was an enthusiast of marginal or outsider
American pop culture when he started to collect original comic art in 1965 a
time when very few people, including the artists themselves, truly valued the
original art. Bray has, over the last nearly 50 years, amassed the most eclectic
collection of original comic art in private hands. The book features work by a
pantheon of cartooning masters, including Charles Addams, Carl Barks, Charles
Burns, Al Capp, Dan Clowes, Jack Cole, R. Crumb, Jack Davis, Kim Deitch, Will
Elder, Al Feldstein, Virgil Finlay, Drew Friedman, Chester Gould, Justin Green,
Rick Griffin, Bill Griffith, Matt Groening, George Grosz, V.T. Hamlin, Jaime
Hernandez, George Herriman, Al Hirshfeld, Graham Ingels, Bernard Krigstein,
Harvey Kurtzman, Gary Panter, Virgil Partch, Savage Pencil, Peter Pontiac,
Charles Rodrigues, Spain Rodriguez, Charles Schulz, Gilbert Shelton, Joost
Swarte, Stanislav Szukalski, Irving Tripp, Chris Ware, S. Clay Wilson, Basil
Wolverton, Wallace Wood, Jim Woodring, Art Young, and it should go without
saying many more. Public exhibitions of original comics art has proliferated
over the last decade with such shows as Masters of American Comics at LA's
Hammer Museum and R. Crumb's Underground at Seattle's Frye Museum. Readers have
been able to see this original art in museum catalogues and the occasional
compilation of work digitally scanned directly from the original art. Although
drawn for print, the hand-crafted original art brush strokes and pen lines inked
on paper offers a beauty and an unique insight into the form, a different way
of perceiving the artist's work.
