Execrable. Not because it´s violent, everyone´s love violence, but aside being a copyright violation, he did not created those characters, didn´t nurtured them and clearly wasn´t part of the artist´s teams who worked on them for decades. Why can´t he create HIS OWN characters and having them killing each other? It´s exploiting on the collective memory by trying to be “smart” and hid behind the “parody” thing. And the worst part is having the media covering this as if it deserved any kind of celebration. This is not smart or cool,it´s simply theft.

talent borrows, genius steals.

history repeats

It’s not theft. It’s a joke.

You wouldn’t tell a joke about Superman (for example) by creating your own superhero character and letting him slowly develop over four or five decades – no, you’d simply tell a joke about Superman, copyright-infringement or not.

Now – whether jokes are art is a different issue. I’m sure it was either Bill or Gimpo who asked “why do all artists now think they are comedians?” back in the mid-90s, and there’s certainly a bit of a cross-over (Damient Hirst and Vic Reeves both at Goldsmiths doing stuff with meat at the same time, etc).

But I’m not sure if this counts as “art” – maybe just as a good joke. And if it’s a joke, then its one I’ve sometimes heard before … (not least, in the real WB episode of Roadrunner when Wile E Coyote actually catches him) …

… hmm …

I often had art described to me as “something that evokes an emotion in the viewer” as in, any emotion, good or bad, love or hate, happiness or even anger.

I’d say from the comments so far, this certainly counts

I went along tonight to the opening and was smiling all the time, man that was funny! Eventually after 50+ years of the same predicatable Looney Tunes & WB cartoons, Jimmy + Harrry have shown us the reality of the violence. I don’t want to disect it too much; I just had a really smiley evening and that’s all that I needed. Plus I got a couple of LE prints that will keep me smiling for a long time to come. Hats off to the father and son. Quote of the night: “I’ll never be able to watch a [character name] cartoon in the same way again”

its itchy and scratchy innit…

Considering that the people who actually created the characters are not the recipients of any cash for ongoing use of the characters anyway — only an immortal, corporate entity — any sense of infringement or theft I might feel is reduced to nil. Intellectual property laws have run amok and threaten to strangle the development of culture.

All that aside, it’s interesting to see the mainstream reaction to this (well, as close to mainstream as any museum showing will have) across the globe.

i think this is great! everyone watched the vio;ence in the cartoons over the yrs and never complained, so stop yer whining over it now. its great to see this depicted so vividly…its the funniest thing…and if anyone has any sense of humor inside them, they will see the HUMOR of it all. grab a funny bone folks!