Thanks to the dense fog currently blanketing Toronto, comic-book legend Art Spiegelman’s plane was re-routed from the downtown island airport to Pearson International Airport. Luckily, a fan recognized the New York comic-book legend and gave him a lift into the city in time for a press conference at the Art Gallery of Ontario, launching the exhibition Art Spiegelman’s CO-MIX: A Retrospective. Later, Spiegelman joked with AGO director and CEO Matthew Teitelbaum that comics artists are “as famous as badminton players.”

While Spiegelman’s face may not be familiar to many beyond the world of underground comix aficionados, his body of work has influenced a large cross-section of popular culture, from his 1992 Pulitzer Prize–winning illustrative narrative Maus (he “disproves” of the term “graphic novel”) and his illustrated New Yorker covers to his snot-nosed Garbage Pail Kids trading cards.

Art Spiegelman’s CO-MIX: A Retrospective, which opens tonight, and runs at the AGO until March 14, features more than 300 works on paper, including early sketches, original Maus manuscripts, and book illustrations. Spiegelman returns to Toronto on Jan. 26 for a lecture titled “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?” at Bloor Docs Cinema. There is also an accompanying book, published by Drawn & Quarterly.