From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 06:26:46 -0400

Barbara Tobin writes:

I'm so curious about this. These students did not read comics? In the Sunday papers? (When we moved to New York from St. Louis when I was 15 I was horrified to discover our local paper had no funnies; still doesn't.) Archie comics? Garfield? Superman? Donald Duck?

What exactly are their objections? Is it the really old one that comics are bad for you? That they aren't literature? Was it the YA content or the particular structure and look of the ones they studied?

If I were to present these wonderful publications to teachers I'd probably do it historically. Go back to the early comics (hmmmm....anyone know what is the earliest comic? Is it related to chapbooks?): Krazy Kat, the Katzenjammer Kids (spelling?), Little Nemo, super heroes, Little Nemo, and move on to Tin Tin, Asterix, Feiffer, and so on. Also, I'd have them consider them as something between a picture book and a novel without pictures. I'd give them all sorts to consider (including C. Underpants!).
 The range is so great and so wonderful. Short, long, b/w, color....

I'm turning into a comic zealot (who'd a thunk it? - lightbulb going on over head), but the relative silence here (or is everyone just recovering from Easter!?) and the response of these students reinforces my sense that this is a form of publication that needs to be much better known and appreciated beyond one extreme or the other.

Monica (who cannot shut up it seems!)


Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Tue 13 Apr 2004 05:26:46 AM CDT