Before I go too far, a little disclaimer seems to be in order: I am a teaching assistant in Dr. Diane Facinelli’s Superheroes and American Culture course taught through Barrett, The Honors College at the Polytechnic campus.
So what does that class study?
In short, the course is about comic books and superheroes and is discussed from an academic perspective.
Criticisms I have heard against comic books include: comics are just for kids and they are the epitome of escapist entertainment, both of which are patently wrong.
Our class, though, doesn’t spend a three-hour class period each week discussing and debunking criticisms from academics, parent groups and parents.
Rather, we examine the visual depictions of moral ambiguities visual literature affords that traditional print text cannot.
Some in the literary ivory tower may not like that notion, but the theory in my class is being shown each week to become more of a fact.
Reading a book involves a reader’s imagination to mentally create the setting and characters, a concept that we can all agree on to some extent. Comic books, though, depict the images, but just because the image is on the page does not prompt the reader to abandon his or her imagination.
There are other elements in a comic book that must be understood: the use of colors and how dynamic they are, the way each panel (illustration) is presented and perhaps most importantly, the small blank spaces between the panels.
One panel may show a group of heroes standing around discussing a matter of importance. The next one shows them hurriedly moving off to do something, with a token “Excelsior!” speech balloon coming from the leader.
In between these two panels is a four-millimeter blank space. What happened in the spot between these two illustrations? Is it important? In addition, maybe most interestingly, was that space left blank intentionally?
These questions do not arise in traditional literature classes, because the narratives of novels do not leave the reader with such ambiguities, except for maybe post-modernist literature.
The students in my class have learned to see that the colors and how vivid they are add depth and another layer to the visual element of the story.
They are learning how to apply literary theory to a different type of text, as well as how to implement visual rhetoric theory in order to understand the context and relevance of the comic book or graphic novel as a means of commentary on American culture.
The stigma embodied by Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons” does not apply to anyone in this class; instead, students with a myriad of backgrounds and academic interests are given the opportunity to explore ambiguities in an updated and modernized way that the literary canon cannot, no matter how hard a professor tries.
Comic books and graphic novels, especially “Maus,” “DMZ,” “100 Bullets” and “Persepolis,” need to be integrated into traditional literature survey courses to open up a larger discourse on the role literature plays in society and the human experience.
The fact that this class filled up in less than an hour is a testament that students are interested, and that Barrett has chosen to continue offering the course proves there is a strong academic merit for the course.
Tyler can be reached at tjones16@asu.edu
