Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, British Library

It's every child’s shock to find out that the generation before them used to read comics too, after spending all childhood working towards books with no pictures in. The British Library’s exhibition Comics Unmasked: Art And Anarchy replays that delightful shock with an even mix of scholarly and English graphic design tradition as well as forceful, shocking post-war visuals.

It will be either a relief or a curiosity (depending on whether you are English or not) to find something that the English are actually the best at. England is the home of slander and scandal. It made no da Vincis or Fragonards, it made Hogarth, Punch, George Cruikshank and Thomas Rowlandson. Its art does not celebrate, or revel; it takes the piss and damns things. Besides this, and this is what the exhibition is really about, the comics of the post-war are bright, bold, built to entertain, and still succeeding.

From the japes and bravery of the Beano and Eagle comics, and solid 50s and 60s English rapscallionery, the exhibition takes deep into the dark, genre-smashing work of the 1970s and the graphic novel. Some of the biggest names in comics will be featured, including Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Mark Millar (Kick-Ass) and Grant Morrison (Batman: Arkham Asylum). A look at the comic creation process will be fascinating for anyone who ever wondered about the planning and the effort behind the pictures that set out to assault the status quo with regard to gender, violence, sexuality, drug-taking and politics.

For the scholarly British Library, this is a shift in tone from previous exhibitions and is set to draw the crowds. Traditionally non-highbrow culture is normally overlooked but, as Roly Keating, the library's chief executive, appropriately remarked: "This year we are addressing that with a vengeance." With superheroes like this, you won’t think this lowbrow art for long.