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Comics Not Corrupting the Youth After All
Comics don't rot your brain after all, despite what your Mom says.
by
Nov 06, 2009
Nov 06, 2009
As comic book fans, we've long fought the uphill battle of convincing ignorant (and likely racist) detractors of comic books as a "legitimate" form of literature. If you are reading this article, then I'd be preaching to the choir to explain the torment one goes through when the poor soul who hands you back your copy of Watchmen that you gave them to expand their mind can only tell you what they thought about Dr. Manhattan's blue dong haunting every scene.
And of course, we've long heard the argument that comics are kids stuff and they do children no good. Well, naysayers, Carol L. Tilley, professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois has conducted a study that concludes comic books are just as beneficial to children as any other form of reading. So while this may not be much of a step towards convincing adults that they aren't reading kid stuff, it is something that educators and parents should take to heart when their kids want to read about Superman and Spider-Man as opposed to another rendition of Spongebob.
“A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,” says Tilley. “Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.”
“Any book can be good and any book can be bad, to some extent,” she said. “It’s up to the reader’s personality and intellect. As a whole, comics are just another medium, another genre.”
As far as comics as a legitimate art form, libraries and bookstores have been steadily increasing their comics/graphic novel/manga sections, though school libraries are still a bit slow on the uptake. Of comics being on their way to being recognized in the same light as other literary forms, Tilley said “In the last 15 years, we’ve seen some big changes. For instance, comic book publishers and distributors are showing up at library conferences and some review journals regularly evaluate graphic novels. That would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. So it has caught on, to some degree.”
She also cites cartoonists like Art Spiegelman, whose Maus won a Pulitzer in 1992. Comics have come a long way since the days of the 1950's where they were the subject of a heated campaign to "save" America's youth. Her study has been published in School Library Monthly, so hopefully those long nosed librarians will get a clue and get the students some god damn Batman comics.
Not in any way associated with Crave Entertainment, Inc.
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