I’m a huge fan of graphic novels and when I read this twitter thread from @kmarch67 it made me incredibly sad and rather angry. I’ve already written about the difficulty of getting students reading for pleasure but when teachers are telling students they shouldn’t read graphic novels, then they are only making the situation worse. One has to assume that these teachers do not understand the great depth in graphic novel writing that is out there and haven’t read many of them or otherwise they wouldn’t say such a thing. I would also argue that some picture books (that wouldn’t necessarily be considered graphic novels) can also offer complexity, through the combination of words and images they convey but more on that later.
In many grown-up minds, cartoons or comics are associated with their childhood and therefore an availability bias occurs. They just remember them as being infantile and therefore regard them as so when someone mentions they are reading a comic book. It’s a classic rule of thumb but as behavioural economists know, this is where bad decisions are made and I’d argue that a teacher telling a student that they should not read a graphic novel is definitely a bad decision.
Even the wider book community has acknowledged the power of graphic novels, as shown by the inclusion of Nick Drnaso’s ‘Sabrina’ in the 2018 Booker Prize list. The story of the murder of a woman named Sabrina is an incredible read, which is very haunting and gets you thinking about the state of the world in an era of ‘fake news’.
Film and TV companies like Netflix also seem to acknowledge that they make great stories as shown by the continual number of adaptations of excellent graphic novels. Most of them haven’t really worked as films but the ideas that are conveyed in the books by Alan Moore are incredibly thought provoking and potentially inspiring, as shown by the many ‘V for Vendetta’ masks worn when there are marches against the 1%.
You could also argue that reading classic novels in graphic novel form can work from a dual-coding angle as the combination of words and pictures is an effective tool to learn, as explained here by the learning scientists. The Shakespeare Manga series can certainly work in this regard for studying set texts like ‘The Merchant of Venice’ or ‘Hamlet’ in English. I love these books and when I drive the A Level English students to Stratford-Upon-Avon for their annual trip to the RSA, I’ll often read the Manga version of the play we are seeing in order to fully understand what’s going on. The Manga Shakespeare books are produced by Self Made Hero and they have a superb collection of books and I can heartily recommend the ‘Castro’ biography, ‘Heart of Darkness’ (that eventually made me read the actual book – it was a gateway drug!) and ‘Tetris’, the story of the classic Nintendo game.
There are many great graphic novels but I wanted to mention picture books as well, that can also have huge amounts of depth. Take Dr Seuss’ ‘The Butter Battle Book’ which is his satire on the ‘cold war’ or Michael Rosen’s incredible study of grief in his book ‘Sad Book’. These are two books that can be read at any stage of life and provide the reader with opportunities to reflect. Why would you stop children reading them? We often complain that children are too quick to grow up and then force them away from reading what they want! It doesn’t make sense. Let them love all books and especially graphic novels!
For graphic novel enthusiasts, here are some recommended reads related to some subjects.
Economics – Supercrash by Darryl Cunningham, Deogratias by Stassen and Red Son by Mark Millar (as featured in the EconomicsInTen podcast on Karl Marx alongside Martin Rowson’s Communist Manifesto)
History – Barefoot Gen by Keiji, Maus by Art Spiegelman and Peterloo by Polyp
Media Studies/Sociology – Filmish by Edward Ross and The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone
Geography – Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, As The World Burns by Jensen and McMillan
Psychology – Psychiatric Tales by Darryl Cunningham and Neurocomic by Farinella
Philosophy – Logicomix by Doxiadis and Papadimitriou
English/Drama – 99 Ways To Tell A Story by Matt Madden
If you are looking for anything to read about how to produce graphic novels/cartoons, then you can’t go far wrong than reading Scott McCloud’s books on the subject, including Making Comics and Understanding Comics.
I would also heartily recommend checking out Icon Books as their Graphic Guide/Introducing series are excellent and cover almost every subject imaginable. I often use their ‘Introducing Economics’ book to quickly look up something on my subject. ENJOY!!!
*Footnote: Most of these book links connect to Amazon but please do the reverse of what you would normally do and browse on Amazon and then buy on the high street from a proper book shop!
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