One day after German class, a young man came
up to me with a book in hand. He was a bright high school student
with good grades, but he usually clowned around when talking to me;
this time he was quite serious. "Look, you should read this," he
said. He showed me a copy of Maus: A Survivor's Tale (1986) by Art
Spiegelman, a comic book version of the Holocaust in which mice were
the Jews and cats the Nazis. The story is based on Spiegelman's
father's survival of Auschwitz. Before reading Maus, I had no idea a
"comic book" could be so powerful. Maus went on to win the Pulitzer
Prize, the first graphic novel to do so, and I recommended it to
other students.
In an increasingly visual culture, literacy
educators can profit from the use of graphic novels in the
classroom, especially for young adults. The term graphic novel
includes fiction as well as nonfiction text with pictures — "comics"
in book format. That such works are being taken seriously is
reflected in an issue of The New York Times Book Review (Eggers,
2000), which included a review of four graphic novels, and the novel
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Chabon, 2000) about two
comics creators, which was also a Pulitzer Prize winner. Moreover,
librarians have become strong supporters of graphic novels. (See,
for example, Bruggeman, 1997; DeCandido, 1990; Kan, 1994).
Graphic novels offer value, variety, and a
new medium for literacy that acknowledges the impact of visuals.
These novels appeal to young people, are useful across the
curriculum, and offer diverse alternatives to traditional texts as
well as other mass media. They can also promote literacy. Weiner
(2002) listed the major kinds of graphic novels as The Superhero
Story, The Human Interest Story, Manga (i.e., translated into
English), Nonfiction, Adaptations or Spinoffs (e.g., the Star Trek
series), and Satire. Adaptations of literary works can be useful in
English classes. I remember looking forward to reading the "real"
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky after I read the Classics Comics
version as a child. Illustrated classics still exist, such as J.R.R.
Tolkien's The Hobbit (1989) and the 2001 translation of Proust's
Remembrance of Things Past: Combray. Graphic novels can introduce
students to literature they might never otherwise encounter, such as
Peter Kuper's rendition of Kafka, Give It Up! And Other Stories
(1995); the black-and-white illustrations are definitely
"Kafkaesque" and are as puzzling and mesmerizing as the original
texts.
Educators need not worry that graphic novels
discourage text reading. Lavin (1998) even suggested that reading
graphic novels may require more complex cognitive skills than the
reading of text alone. Some English teachers use graphic novels to
teach literary terms and techniques such as dialogue, and they use
works like the Victorian murder novel The Mystery of Mary Rogers
(Geary, 2001) as a bridge to other classics of that period. Graphic
novels can also inspire writing assignments. For example, the human
interest story Jack Cole and the Plastic Man (Spiegelman & Kidd,
2001) intersperses an essay on the short, tragic life of comic
artist Jack Cole with examples of his artwork, photographs, and even
reproductions of a Christmas card Cole sent. The collage that
results captures biography in a new way. For a challenging classroom
project, students could create graphic novels based on literary
works or their own autobiographies.
Social studies is another area in which
graphic novels can bring new life beyond bland textbooks. The
Cartoon History of the Universe II (Gonick, 1994) covers the history
of China and India up to the fall of Rome with irony and humor.
Although packed with information, the book's black-and-white
drawings demonstrate that history can be fun and funny, too. An
especially potent graphic novel that offers many history and civics
lessons is 9-11: Artists Respond (Chaos! Comics, Dark Horse Comics,
& Image, 2002). In it various well-known comic artists like Will
Eisner and Frank Miller respond to the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001. Pieces touch on the heroics of the rescuers, the
fears of children, reflections on hate, and much more. One picture
of the Empire State Building bent and mourning over Ground Zero
captures the power of this work.
Graphic novels offer subject matter students
might otherwise never consider and help them imagine history.
Raymond Briggs's account of his parents' lives in England, called
Ethel and Ernest (1998), shows the changing look of England over 50
years and how common people reacted to major events like World War
II. Likewise, Will Eisner's A Contract With God and Other Tenement
Stories (1978) depicts daily life in a Bronx tenement during the
1930s (with some adult content) in ways both humorous and touching.
Graphic novel creators have even used the superhero story to examine
social, political, and economic issues. In Superman: Peace on Earth
(Ross & Dini, 1999), Superman tackles world hunger. With its
large format and photographic quality illustrations, this Superman
novel opens up difficult real-life questions worth discussing in the
classroom. Another example is Hope and Deliverance (Figuero &
Albert, 1996), book two of a multipart graphic novel series, The
Project, which explores the lives of people in a low-income housing
project on the outskirts of a large northeastern city in the United
States. Characters include a pregnant crack addict, violent gang
members, and a woman trying to fight the influence of the gang on
her community. Harsh language and dramatic black-and-white drawings
make for a strong experience (and require parental permission).
Other subject areas can benefit from the
graphic novel, including art, science, and even math. Larry Gonick
and Wollcott Smith wrote The Cartoon Guide to Statistics (1993).
Although my statistics professor friend found it a bit too busy and
simple, I found it a humorous and down-to-earth approach to the
subject and a useful introduction for high school students.
Furthermore, the graphic novel format is being used in a new series
of academic books on great ideas such as McLuhan for Beginners
(Gordon & Willmarth, 1997) and Introducing Cultural Studies
(Sardar & Van Loon, 1998). These are like CliffsNotes for
adults, but funny; older students can use them to study philosophy,
sociology, and other subjects.
In any subject area, studying a graphic novel
can bring media literacy into the curriculum as students examine the
medium itself. Students can explore such questions as how color
affects emotions, how pictures can stereotype people, how angles of
viewing affect perception, and how realism or the lack of it plays
into the message of a work.
An important benefit of graphic novels is
that they present alternative views of culture, history, and human
life in general in accessible ways, giving voice to minorities and
those with diverse viewpoints. The Four Immigrants Manga (Kiyama,
1999), for example, was recently discovered and translated into
English. It describes the life of four Japanese immigrants in San
Francisco, California, from 1904 to 1924. In a simple
black-and-white but entertaining style, these stories, based on the
author's real life, contribute genuine insight on the lives of
Japanese immigrants. With helpful endnotes and a bibliography, this
"comic book" is fun to read but also instructive. Another example is
the cartoon history of African Americans Still I Rise (Laird, Laird,
& Bey, 1997), which was researched and written by African
Americans. This thorough work may be hard for white Americans to
read; it presents a harsh judgment on U.S. history while celebrating
the resilience of African Americans. An example of satire in graphic
novels is 2024 (Rall, 2001), which is a contemporary version of
George Orwell's 1984. The language and sexual content make the whole
work classroom unfriendly, but parts could be used. Ted Rall's
bitter story takes on corporate-sponsored materialism,
postmodernism, and the mass media. It is both funny and depressing
and offers a true alternative to most TV programs, films, and
magazines young people usually see. The production of graphic novels
allows for real diversity, which is essential for a literate
democracy.
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