What Do You See? 

Roy Lichtenstein's "Hopeless" (1964) 111.8 cm × 111.8 cm (44 in × 44 in)

When you look at “Hopeless” (1964) by Roy Lichtenstein, you see an oil and acrylic comic book style painting of a young blonde woman laying down and crying with a thought bubble over her head that reads “that’s the way— it should have begun! But it’s hopeless!” Her face takes up most of the canvas as she lays on a flat but somewhat crinkled blue surface. As she lays down, a lock of her hair flows over the blue surface and another lock of hair goes behind her ear and falls over her neck framing her face. To the left of the painting, she is wearing a white jacket and has her right hand resting in front of her so that only her thumb, index, middle, and ring finger are visible. There is a bright red background that is only visible in the upper left corner but is notably absent in the upper right, where the unfilled space is black. The painting has many features that are characteristic of a comic book style such as thick black lines, a drawn space for dialogue, and a perfectly square canvas. Looking at the image more closely however, we notice that while everything else is made of solid colors, the woman’s skin, eyes, and the surface she is laying on are made of small dots of slightly varying color. These dots are called Benday dots and were often used among comic makers as a cheap way of coloring for comics in order to mass produce them. Lichtenstien uses these Benday dots to amplify the effect of the comic book style and draw the viewer in. This contrast in coloring and texture takes attention away from the woman’s face and puts more emphasis on her facial features. It helps the viewer to notice the woman’s vibrant blue eyes, full pinkish lips, bright blonde hair, and the tears forming in her eyes. These features highlight the woman’s beauty but they also give the viewer the sense that the woman is vulnerable and reiterates the woman’s feeling of hopelessness. ​

The Comic Book Aesthetic

“Hopeless” parodies the renowned drawing style of 1960s comics by exaggerating some of the main visual aspects of the original style in order to bring out a deeper meaning. The thicker lines (image 1)  and vibrant colors (image 2) highlight the conventional qualities of beauty and in particular the tear falling from the woman’s otherwise vacant looking face. The Benday dots (image 3) help draw attention away from the woman’s face shape and bring attention towards the characteristically feminine facial features that are often associated with vulnerability. Nonetheless, these exaggerations often subvert some of the the typical qualities of the comic book style. For example, Lichtenstein's use of very vibrant colors in contrast to the dull colors of traditional comic, has the effect of making the painting seem much more lively and dramatic. Moreover, while comic books are designed to tell a story by using many panels, Lichtenstein’s painting only provides one and leaves us wondering as to what dramatic events preceded the depicted panel.

Image 1: the thicker lines highlight the woman's eye lashes and draw attention to the tear running down her face

Image 2: The vibrant yellow shows off the woman's long blonde hair

Image 3: this close up gives a better view of the Benday dots that color her face and make her facial features more prominent 

“In parody the implication is the perverse, and I feel that in my own work I don’t mean it to be that. Because I don’t dislike the things that I’m parodying… the things that I have parodied I actually admire.” - Roy Lichtenstien ​

*courtesy of - Donald B. Kuspit, Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism, Art Journal

Meaning in the Mundane 

Lichtenstein’s choice to parody comic books was a fascinating decision. Comic books were so saturated in pop culture that people would not have thought to see the artistic qualities in them anymore than they might have thought to find artistic qualities in advertisements or other such cultural staples. “Hopeless” hyperbolizes its original source and causes us to rethink our perception on mass produced media through a more artistic lense. As Bradford Collins writes in his article Modern Romance: Lichtenstein's Comic Book Paintings in the journal American Art “the melodrama of adolescent romance is more pronounced […] in Lichtenstein’s paintings than his comic book sources.” Bradford’s statement calls attention to the “melodrama” of the girl and the motives of the original source. The title itself seems to echo this idea as the word “Hopeless” helps exaggerate the dramatic mood of the painting and encourages us to recognize the artistic potential in something as mass produced and inconspicuous as “comic books.” Finally, It is important to note that while the image does highlight the overblown melodrama of the thing, Lichtenstein does not intend to critique but to simply demonstrate. As Liechtenstein himself put it “the things that I have parodied I actually admire.”

​A multimodal project by Jack Vogt for Dr. Sturm's ENGL 1102 course Georgia State University Fall 2022

Works Cited

Avishai, Tamar. “Episode 27: Roy Lichtenstein's Ohhh...alright... (1964).” The Lonely Palette Podcast, The Lonely Palette Podcast, 5 Oct. 2019,                                                                            
          http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2018/3/5/episode-27-roy-lichtensteins-ohhhalright-1964. ​

BEATY, BART. “Introduction: Out of the Historical Dustbin – Comics and the Hierarchy of Genres.” Comics Versus Art, University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 3–15. JSTOR,                                                                                                http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442696266.4. Accessed 25 Oct. 2022.

Cuspit, Donald B. Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism - JSTOR. CAA, https://www.jstor.org/stable/776112. 
​
Doris, Sara. Vol. 28, No. 2, Summer 2014 of American Art on JSTOR. University of Chicago Press, 2014, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/677974.