There is no a contemporary Western citizen who would hardly recognize Roy-Fox-Lichtenstein-inspired comic strips and elements, used in the routine world of advertizing. He was one of the most outstanding artists during the 1960s in the US and one of the leaders in the Pop Movement with James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. His works are imbued with comic styles and devices with the modernist ones, wrapped in a pop manner to convey reports through vivid artistic messages. Roy Lichtenstein’s The Painting in Strange Suspense Stories and In the Car are bright reflections of his mastery and dexterity to be a pop artist.

Both works use human images and include symbols of American Pop art. Firstly, “The Painting” in Strange Suspense Stories seems to reveal the actual confrontation between an art work, its artist, and the viewer. It is an actual drawn comic with an artist and his painting, being the central figures. Typically for the genre, the comic includes phrases and a collage of scenes to depict a story. The expression “I can’t stop myself! I must paint!” belongs to the constant anxiety of every artist’s possessing in one’s love-hate relationship with creating art. “No! I won’t listen to you! I won’t!” emphasizes on frequently artists’ and viewers’ confrontation of the reality with the artwork’s speaking and denying every creation to have the right to exist. Finally, a typical consequence of people confrontation is aggression leading to the artist’s cutting of The Painting. Secondly, In the Car is a close-up photo shot of a comic, which exhibits a man driving a woman in a car. The work is exemplary due to the close-up photo shot to be used for emphasizing human expressions and emotions, being the key message indicators here. The horizontal stripes on the woman’s face indicate the wind rush and the car’s speeding. She is tense, excited, and defensive. The man pays no attention to the road and intentionally devours the woman at his gaze. The woman is the object of the man’s look and he keeps her for him. Hence, both of the works can belong to any person due to their practical meaning and reflection of what occurs every day but is left without proper attention.

Roy Lichtenstein was a prodigy in using artistic devices of different genres and mixing them with pop culture to create In the Car and The Painting. Both artworks are expressive and comprehensible to any viewer. Moreover, one can find a resonance with both art works within one’s own life story. The typical Lichtenstein comic devices underline the works dynamics and transmit real occurrences through the cartoon-like world. His works inspire the advertizing field even now, with his comic heroes to be frequently used in it for promoting goods or services.

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