Lichtenstein was a professor of art at the time, and within three years he'd realized that drawings like those, enlarged and with the expressionistic brushwork removed, was the kind of art he wanted to pursue. In 1961, he made his first painting from a comic strip. Another California artist, Mel Ramos, specialized in such cartoon heroes as Batman. No one really knows, but there was clearly something in the air. The things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire.
Pop art looks out into the world.
It appears to accept its environment, which is not good or bad, but different, another state of mind. In his own renderings of comic strips, Lichtenstein wasn't simply copying the illustrations that appeared in the comics. Although he started with a panel or a series of panels, he refined and transformed the images. Or, more plainly, turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. And Lichtenstein pulled it off.