Tuesday evenings at the Vancouver Art Gallery draw huge crowds. The artists, the activists, the students, the penniless, all line up in a colourful caterpillar of bodies that more often than not winds itself right out the door: a mutant blend of humans literally spilling out onto the street where the street people (mainly too shabby to join even this motley crue of culture) approach to ask for coins or the occasional cigarette.

The street, that last paved figment of perceived free-dom has been occupied by art that asks us to “buy art not cocaine” (thanks Lincoln Clarkes), and the near-mythical photo-derived graffiti showing a figure, cloaked in an old tattered blanket, that states "keep your coins, I want change.” Even the white balloon baby atop the door, framed by pillars, screams at the street as street art, solidly placed outside the gallery, stalking the gaze of the crazy, embodying the Krazy Show, which brings me to my topic.

The main thing I noticed when I ventured in (for the third Tuesday in a row), after dodging requests for a ten dollar donation by flicking coins and a piece of my mind at the dedicated and possibly underfunded staff, was that nobody was laughing. When I mentioned this to a couple standing next to me, we all burst into an uproarious and shared laugh that echoed throughout the otherwise still and guarded soundscape.

My first guess was that, pinned like extinguished moths into archivally mounted frames, the Sunday funnies, as "art," gained seriousness. On my second visit, I noted that the positioning of the comic drawings, meant to be read sequentially, was actually (because of the way the crowd flowed through the space) being approached backwards, as one would a manga comic book. No wonder people weren't laughing. The punchline sketch was being read first. It didn't make sense.

As systems of representation, comics are probably the least problematic of the mediums featured in this inter-disciplinary forum. Although the comic-strip does transit into its long-winded cousin, the graphic novel, both art-forms engage the viewer and reader the same way. The comic-strip character at its most basic is a stick figure, a flat and unpretentious significator that makes no effort to be other than itself. It does not purport to echo reality, nor does it enter into what Baudrillard describes as the hyper-real. And, while it is true that violence, misogyny, racial prejudice, neurosis, hypocrisy and other of the less-desirable human attributes are part and parcel of what makes comics funny, the curatorial choices featured in Krazy act to question these issues. They engage the viewer and reader as the imaginary, because cats don't talk, but Katz does.

As social commentary, the Krazy Katz strips pit a rebel mouse, an opportunistic cat, and a dumb police dog into comical dramas of their own making. They are funny in a ha-ha way, but also point out some status quo faux pas. Is the uniform more important than the person? Why should the early bird catch the worm? What about the early worm?

Likewise with the other selections in this show. “George Sprott (1894-1975),” who died safely well before 9/11, is the title of a graphic novel, the brainchild of Canadian artist Seth, also known as Gregory Gallant, creator of Palooka-Ville. We are presented with Sprott's entire life-passage in a few sketched, clean, black and white comic images. Seth reminds us that "as much as he favoured the idea, there was no Inuit spirit that was waiting for him on the other side" as, "surely, he thought, this life is but a dream also." Seth, who contributed regularly to the New York Times, states "I wanted that simple feeling of moving from a full room, a full life, to an empty room, to remind us how quickly life passes—how quickly everyone forgets." Seth is acutely aware of the distinctions between the imaginary and the real, stating, in the last comic tableau, "and once again, I've imparted nothing real about the man himself." Pretty heady stuff for the funnies . . . .

Harvey Kurtzman's “Two-fisted Tales” are depicted in fabulous graphics: a heavy application of black lines that resemble lino or wood-block prints to the eye. In the comic "Corpse on the Imjin" (1952), the violence is present only as a deterrent to real violence. His characters, US soldiers on the front, let us in on a few trade secrets: "Now, with all the long-range weapons, we can kill pretty good by remote control." There is a clearly stated differentiation between reality and comic book imaginary: "Where are all the wisecracks you read in the comic books?" This is absolutely an anti-war war story. Alas! A man dies. Kurtzman (1924-1993) who founded Mad Magazine also died safely before 9/11. As narrator, he reflects "for he has lost that most precious possession that we all value above everything else. . . he has lost his life."

Jerry Moriarty's "Jack Survives" comments on porn versus the real thing. Jack leaves his girl for Saskatoon because "there's lots of porn there" and "I hear there's no women." In another strip, Jack makes sure all his ID documents, keys and important items are stuffed safely into one pocket, only to drop the entire thing into a slotted grate. Great lines, visually and verbally: "Everything's in one pocket,” “all my identity's down there,” “that's sad.” Sad, yes, funny, yes, but not in a ha-ha sort of way.

Jody Green's comic books, "Binky Brown meets the Holy Virgin," examine the repressive neuroses fueled by a Catholic Church that purports that "there are no holy signs below the belt." The idolatrous hypocrisy of Binky's mother as she exclaims: "Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you've destroyed the Madonna!" is laid bare as Binky throws a ball that breaks a statue: "I broke th'burjin Mary.” The adult choir is portrayed as a series of puppets, and Green (as narrator) reflects: "Although god knows whether we will go to heaven or hell when we die, we still have free will to do good or evil."

This strip is definitely not intended for the very young. In his opening remarks, Green enters into a complicity of shared referential with the viewer or reader, stating flatly: "Many of you are aspiring revolutionaries,” but this is “not intended solely for your entertainment."

Lynda Barry's 100 Demons is a refreshing shift into visuals exploding with color, covered in glitter and textile collage. She is, after all, a woman (yey!), and the only woman in this section of the Krazy show, aside from the curator's wife. Born in 1956, published by Sasquatch Books, Barry's comics depict the inner musings of a girl growing up in the USA. Mixing both cursive and caps in the verbal portion of the work is also innovative, and super-feminine (double yey!!), as she confides that "the ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults behave like children." Acutely aware of racial and cultural differences ("I tried to hang out with the Asian crowd"), Barry's character is, like Green's Binky, an exteriorized representation of a real person, a reflection of themselves. The boundaries between the real and the imaginary are starting to bleed and we weep for them, with them, as we laugh.

In terms of Baudrillard's commentary, cultural "values are exalted by the miniature and the comic strip," its "infantile degeneration. This world wants to be childish in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the real world." Following his analysis of the successive phases of the image, the comics thoughtfully selected in Krazy are in the first order of representation, as they are the reflection of a profound reality.

Although television (strangely absent) would fall into the second order of representation as, increasingly, it "masks and denatures a profound reality," it also bridges the gap into the third order of representation, it "masks the absence of a profound reality." This point is poignantly portrayed in Chris Wate's cover for the New Yorker's Thanksgiving issue. In the first drawing, monochromatic in soft browns and gold, is a family supper circa 1940. The table is beautifully set, the family members are engaged in conversation, the food and flowers are pleasantly placed in the center. To the side is a young child, reading (are we surprised?) comics. In the subsequent tableau, all eyes stare vacantly at a TV as the family dining room is in obvious disarray. Mismatched chairs angle towards the flickering screen and a teenager sits in the chair, glued to a cellphone. There is no centerpiece because (are we surprised?) there is no center, only TV.

About TV, Baudrillard states television "is no longer a spectacular medium . . . (itself) no longer identifiable as such, and the confusion between the medium and the message is the first great formula of this new era."

"One must think instead of the media as if they were in outer orbit, a kind of genetic code that directs the mutation of the real into the hyper-real, just as the other micromolecular code controls the passage from a representative code of meaning into the genetic one of the programmed signal." He goes further: "It is the whole traditional world of causality that is in question: the perspectival, determinist mode, the 'active' critical mode, the analytic mode—the distinction between cause and effect, between active and passive, between subject and object, between the end and the means . . . . One can say: TV is watching us, TV alienates us, TV manipulates us, TV informs us. In all this, one remains dependent on the analytical conception of the media, on an external active and effective agent, on 'perspectival' information with the horizon of the real and of meaning as the vanishing point." Whew! And you thought this article was going to be funny.