Comics: Are They ‘Proper Reading’?
And other parodically absurd conversations we are apparently somehow still having in the year 2023.
I was talking to someone in the children’s book field the other day who was telling about me a bit of trouble they’d recently had with their child’s school. Said child - a singularly bright, talented, funny and creative young person, based on my short acquaintance - was (naturally) completely obsessed with comics. But rather than recognising, engaging with and developing this interest, the school was apparently determined to discourage it. To pour a bucket of cold water on their enthusiasm. To insist that comics weren’t “proper” reading.
Which really, at this point, in the Year 2023, just blows my mind. We are still having the Are Comics Real Literature debate? Seriously? Even after the great Michael Kupperman took the trouble to settle this issue so definitively for us all?
Honestly these days I’m a bit surprised to discover that this attitude even still exists. I visit a lot of schools, all over the country, and I am happy to report that they all seem to have a very positive, pro-comics attitude. To recognise the sheer power comics possess for developing children’s literacy skills and getting them excited about reading. To acknowledge that they offer storytelling experiences as rich and complex and rewarding and demanding as any other medium. To, in short, get it.
But then it occurs to me that, oh yeah, these are all schools that have invited *me*, so it is by definition a bit of a self-selecting sample of AWESOME SCHOOLS with EXCELLENT TASTE.
Sadly, it seems that there are less enlightened corners of the world still out there, and frankly it just makes me feel bad for the kids stuck in them.
I could attempt to engage seriously with the ‘are comics proper reading?’ question, but
(A) it honestly doesn’t deserve my time, or yours, or anyone’s, and also
(B) I DON’T WANT TO AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.
So I will merely make a couple of quick, and mildly facetious points. If comics aren’t ‘proper’ reading, if they are somehow inherently of lesser literary, artistic or educational value than prose, then answer me the following:
Firstly: why are all the brightest, most creative kids I meet, and the most voracious readers, so obsessed with comics?
And secondly: do I not, in fact, understand my own job?
Like, seriously. I’ve been doing this job, making comics, for fifteen years or so now. I’ve been reading comics for, what, forty? And, if you’ll allow me to brag for a second in a way I would normally feel deeply uncomfortable about: I am not an idiot. I have, over the decades, acquired an unspectacular but functional baseline level of cultural sophistication. I have visited great art galleries of the world. I have read great writers, marveled at great artists, awed to great musicians. And I have studied these great artists themselves, learned about their experiences across their different fields. Their lives, and their works, and their thoughts about their works. I have some context, at this point, for what making art means to a person. For what it it does to a person.
And based on all that, I see absolutely no difference in intrinsic value between comics and any other art form. As a reader, there are comics that have imprinted on me as profoundly as any work of art could. And as a creator: I just don’t think it would be possible for me personally to put more care or thought or passion or sheer work into anything than I am putting into, for example, the final volume of Mega Robo Bros. I don’t think I am even theoretically capable of caring more, working harder, agonising more over Trying To Make This Piece Of Art Say This Exact Complicated And Difficult And, To Me, Important Thing That I Am Trying To Make It Say.
I mean, you can absolutely question my level of talent, or intelligence, or ability. But I will fiercely defend the sheer amount of care and thought that I have expended over this comic. That every comics creator I know expends over their comics. And it just seems straightforward and unarguable to me that, as such, comics are at least as deserving of value and consideration as any other medium you care to name.
And if you’re telling me that that’s not true, that you’re fine passing on all of that and making kids miss out on all of that because it is a comic - or even, god forbid, has robots and fart jokes in - then frankly, my dear imaginary straw man friend, I somewhat question your judgement.
There, I said it. And I meant it to sting!
Anyway. You are of course welcome disagree, in which case I invite you to simply contemplate the Artistic And Literary Merit…
Hi Neill, I’m new here thanks to my son who devoured one of your Mega Robo Bros books we found at a Hampshire library yesterday… he read the thing TWICE!! It’s my job now to become obsessed 😆 we are lucky enough to have a school that fully encourages comics and the creating there of. We came across your books through Phoenix. We can’t get enough… hoping to approach our school to introduce more of what you do. Please help! Ps… comics = literacy ✊🏼 cheers Jana
I find it continually strange that people put so much effort into criticising/dismissing artforms that they don't read/watch/etc themselves - which by default means they're ill-informed and not really in a position to cast judgement on the artform.
There are lots of musical genres I don't like, but I wouldn't think to try to argue to fans that the genre somehow "doesn't count".
Though, actually, this is worse, because it's not even specific to a genre but to an entire form. Much the same as the dismissal of video games. Although in that latter case it's largely a generational thing, and seems to be finally shifting away from the silliness of the 90s and 2000s. It's weird that comics STILL have this problem, given how mature and old a medium it is.