Comics genius Art Spiegelman yanked his work from the ambitious "Masters of American Comics" show which opened last week in New York. The exhibition, which originated in LA at the MOCA and Hammer museums, also needed two museums in NY to host it. Spiegelman, who originated the idea for the show a decade ago, has big beef with the logistical and political ramifications of those venues:

Putting works from the first half of the 20th century in the Newark Museum, he wrote in a letter of protest, "is, from the perspective of this provincial New Yorker, the equivalent of hiding them in a Federal Witness Protection Program."

Moreover, Spiegelman argued, putting the work of seven later comic artists in the Jewish Museum could distort the aim of the show "by presenting the medium as some sort of 'ethnic' phenomenon."

New Yorkers, never fear. Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus and more can be found safely inside the beautiful catalogue designed by Lorraine Wild & Co. at Green Dragon Office.