Tipping a hat to baseball's season opener, Sunday's graphic was less an Op-Art than a trip to the Smithsonian of contemporary visual culture. Choi Hoon's baseball comics are brand new to me and it's hard to tell from these single-panel excerpts what his complete strips are like. Plus, while as a baseball ignoramus I was grateful for author B.R. Myers' explications of each panel, they're a weird way to read gag comics. Though my cluelessness leaves me humor-impaired, I can't help but admire Hoon's cartooning--the guy just draws funny. His gags draw on everything from a traditional Korean laborer's rig to the flying bike scene in E.T., all with a formidable economy of expression. So what's the latest American product whose makers should start worrying about globalization? I'd say it's Tank McNamara.
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