LOS ANGELES, CA.-The Museum of Cotemporary Art, Los Angeles, presents Masters of American Comics, on view through March 12, 2006. Comic strips and comic books were among the most popular and influential forms of mass media in the 20th century. This exhibition examines 15 key American artists who helped define the form and brought it to the highest level of artistic expression. It features an extensive selection of over 500 original drawings, progressive proofs, vintage-printed Sunday pages, and comic books by Winsor McCay ("Little Nemo"), Lyonel Feininger, George Herriman ("Krazy Kat"), E.C. Segar, Frank King, Chester Gould ("Dick Tracy"), Milton Caniff, Charles Schulz, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Gary Panter, Chris Ware, and Art Spiegelman. Co-organized by MOCA and the Hammer Museum, the exhibition will be shared between the venues, with comic strips created during the first half of the century on view at the Hammer and comic books created from the 1950s to the present on view at MOCA. The exhibition is organized by independent scholar John Carlin in association with Brian Walker and coordinated by MOCA Assistant Curator Michael Darling and Hammer Museum Deputy Director of Collections and Senior Curator Cynthia Burlingham.

Masters of American Comics is jointly organized by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. 89.9 KCRW is the Official Radio Sponsor for the exhibition.