The Washington Post has a big feature by “lifelong Prose Guy” Bob Thompson on the realization that hey, comics are really growing in popularity these days. Investigating the matter further, he talks to Francoise Mouly and Adrian Tomine, and attends a lecture by Scott McCloud:
Now McCloud is taking audience questions, and here comes one that seems aimed in my direction.
What about those still-numerous naysayers, he is asked, who resist the idea that books filled with word balloons should be taken as seriously as pure prose? Isn’t there a way to educate those annoying old fogies — perhaps through some kind of “adult literacy campaign for comics”?
Sounds good to me. After all, isn’t education what I’m here for?
McCloud offers a different perspective. Some people will never get it, he says.
“And it’s okay. They’ll die.”
Thompson also teamed up with Mome artist Jonathan Bennet on a series of accompanying comic strips, (I like how Francoise Mouly looks like a Dick Tracy villain). If all that’s not enough, Doug Wolk does a review round-up of some recent titles (hat tip: Bill Kartalopoulos).
August 25th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I’m one of the people Thompson talked with before writing this article, and he even includes me. He spent a LOT of time researching this article, and reading a lot of graphic novels. He covers a wide range of ground, from talking with people like Mouly, Mark Siegel of First Second Books, John Shableski of Diamond Book Distributors, Janna Morishima (also of Diamond Book Distributors), Mike Pawuk, YA librarian in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and more. He talked with us (I spoke with him for more than an hour a few months ago), and treats us with respect. No “Kapow! Bam!” type stuff coming from Thompson.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:52 am
OMG, I finally noticed the panel about libraries – that’s MY comment to Thompson! He quoted me exactly! And that’s almost what it looked like at my reference desk every day after school (and yes, I had short hair like that back then, and I wear glasses)! There were also a couple of high school boys, and a couple of middle school girls who were thrilled that a woman – and a librarian at that! – loved comics the way they did.
That just made my day – when I read the article yesterday, I didn’t have time to check out the comic strips. Woot!