Digital Media: January 2009

Every July, San Diego, California plays host to one of the world’s biggest multi-genre fan conventions. Thousands of fans of comic books, science fiction, fantasy, animation and video games, travel from all over America to celebrate their passion. Many dress up for the occasion.

This book is a celebration of the women who come dressed in costume: the super heroes and super villains, the warrior women and pirates, the queens and princesses, the sea nymphs and the fairies. They come from all walks of life, in all ages, shapes and sizes. Colourful, sexy, glamorous, geeky and proud! These are the Wonder Women of America.

Compiled over 4 days at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con, Wonder Woman of America contains 185 photos of more than 100 women, dressed for thrills. There’s an scene setting introduction by Russell Waterman, and quotes from many of the women, giving some insight into why they dress in costume.

http://www.amostoys.com/amos.html

Superheroes exhibition catalogue designed by Abbott Miller." height="439" width="360">

Superheroes exhibition catalogue designed by Abbott Miller.

The exhibition explores the symbolic and metaphysical associations between fictional comic book characters and fashion and features popular icons such as Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk, Wonder Woman, Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Jean-Paul Gaultier. The show will be celebrated tonight at the Institute’s spring gala—Summer equals superheroes, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has its own summer blockbuster this year in Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, presented by The Costume Institute.co-chaired by George Clooney, of Batman & Robin nippled Batsuit infamy—before opening to the public on Wednesday, 7 May. It remains on view through 1 September.

Abbott Miller’s design for the exhibition catalogue affirms the alliance between fantasy and fashion through the juxtaposition of fashion imagery, comic book details and film and TV stills of superheroes in a comic book frame format. These images have been closely cropped and break the frames to heighten the sense of interconnection. “Comics pioneered the fragmentation of time and space with multiple-frame compositions,” says Miller. “Our design uses this comics strategy to show multiple details and perspectives of a single garment.” The catalogue also features a pressed tin front and back cover that adds a tactile, three-dimensional element to the design, and of course doubles as a kind of armor or chest plate (think Iron Man).

Although nostalgic—the tin cover is reminiscent of a superheroes lunch box—the catalogue avoids a profusion of obvious comic book mimicry. There are no speech bubbles, allowing the images to speak for themselves, and instead of newsprint, the pages have a high-gloss acrylic coating that make the colors pop from the page. In an effort to differentiate the introductory essay by Michael Chabon (Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory) from the rest of the catalogue, the commentary has been designed as a book within a book and printed with a silver border as opposed to white.

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy is published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.

The cover and title pages are indebted to the super-charged graphics of Marvel and DC comics, creating a supertypography that is as bombastic and hyperbolic as the comics.