As professors start assigning graphic novels as required reading, KATHY MATHESON looks at the role of the comic book's cousin in the college classroom.
One of the graphic novels used in a critical writing seminar at the University of Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Dark Angel Productions)
It might be just the thing to motivate Bart Simpson to aim for college: comic books as required reading. But he might find his college homework to have a lot more literary and artistic depth than he was counting on.
Graphic novels -- essentially next-generation comic books -- are showing up in more and more college classrooms, where they're used to teach writing, narrative technique and critical analysis and to explore weightier themes like immigration and national identity.
Todd Mainwaring, a junior at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, read Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel "Persepolis" -- a memoir of growing up in Iran following the 1979 Islamic revolution -- for an advanced composition class.
"I have never read a comic for a class before," Mainwaring said. "It certainly sort of caught us off-guard."
Though some criticize the use of comics in college courses, instructors say they attract nonreaders and offer the same lessons in critical thinking that regular books do.
Judith Musser, an associate English professor at La Salle University, used "Persepolis" in a course she taught on literature told through children's eyes. She's planning to use it again in a comparative course on Eastern and Western culture.
"The story is as propelled as much by dialogue as it is by the pictures," Musser said.
Joe Quesada, editor in chief of Marvel Comics, explained that graphic novels differ from comic books in that comics -- which rely on newsstand sales -- have "never-ending plot lines" and cliffhangers to keep readers coming back each issue. Many credit Will Eisner with pioneering the graphic novel and Art Spiegelman with putting it on the mainstream map with "Maus," an account of the Holocaust that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
Recently, the popularity of graphic novels has been propelled by new writers coming into the medium, as well as by movie tie-ins -- everything from "Batman" to "X-Men" to "Road to Perdition," Quesada said.
"We certainly have a more mature fan that's reading comics now," he said. "Everything about comics has become that much more sophisticated."
Lisa Freinkel, director of the comparative literature program at the University of Oregon, said she worked to integrate graphic novels into the curriculum because there "shouldn't be such strict boundaries" between the academic world and the real world.
In the right hands, she said, graphic novels can be socially and politically provocative -- not just cartoons "about men in tights." Freinkel is using graphic novels to teach a literature class on immigration and diaspora, building on the role of Jewish immigrants to America as pioneers in the history of comics.
Jim Killen, the graphic novel and science-fiction/fantasy buyer for Barnes & Noble, couldn't give exact figures but said graphic novel sales "have increased immensely" over the last several years.
That's in part because many graphic novels are integrated into the subject shelves. "Persepolis," for example, can be found in the "Biography" section, while "Maus" is often kept with other Holocaust memoirs and World War II history books.
"We're actually treating graphic novels more as a format than as a genre," Killen said.
Alex Simmons, creator of the graphic novel character "BlackJack," knows that some people view comics as "something you read while sipping a soda in a candy store." But the illustrated books can offer characters and stories as rich as those found in traditional texts, he said.
"The graphic novel really is simply another literary form," Simmons said.
"BlackJack: Blood and Honor" is one of several graphic novels that University of Pennsylvania instructor Matthew Merlino used to teach a critical writing seminar called "Krazy Kats and Painted Words."
The graphic novels helped engage reluctant readers in interpreting themes and images, said Merlino.
"The point of the class is to help them with their writing," Merlino said. "Having a class that dealt with texts that bridged word and image would be a way of getting different types of students interested."
In "Persepolis," pairing text with spare black-and-white "cartoons" seemed a simple way to tell the story, said Mainwaring, the West Point cadet. But, he said, it also made it more complex: Analyzing the book required thinking about the words as well as the pictures.
"Adding the frames and the images, it adds a whole new aspect," Mainwaring said. "It's almost like writing about film, in a way."
Killen, who noted he recently filled a graphic novel order for a local school district, is heartened that the books are starting to find wider acceptance.
"Like jazz and Westerns, comic books are an original American art form," Killen said. "It's taken decades for it to reach a level of legitimacy. This is an exciting moment for someone like me who has been a comic-book fan since I was a kid."
___
asap contributor Kathy Matheson is an AP reporter based in Philadelphia.
___
Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .
©2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
