Jim Steranko and Zap-Art: Mutations of Marvel Comics in the Pop Era

Abstract

At the end of the 60s, Marvel comics had not yet embraced the modernity that was permeating the rest of artistic manifestations. At least that was the impression of versatile artist Jim Steranko. During his brief time at Marvel, he invented his own term, Zap-art, with which he tried, in a pioneering way, to enrich the language of comics with techniques from other artistic disciplines, always with the aim of reformulating the canon of the comics and the intention to entertain. This zap-art is masterfully condensed in the three issues he made for the Captain America collection, whose pages are full of advertising resources and borrowings of artistic styles such as symbolism and surrealism, which are analyzed in this article. Steranko's visionary achievements are recognized and applied today by artists as avant-garde as Tilly Walden or David Rubín.