254b.qxd 29/11/2007 14:15 Page 70 70 Education and Health Vol.25 No.4, 2007 Dr. Paul Aleixo is a senior lecturer at DeMontfort University and the co-author of 'Biological psychology: An Illustrated Survival Guide' a student textbook written in comics format for publication in 2008 by John Wiley and Sons. Dr. Claire Norris is an academic who spent many years in higher education teaching and researching in psychology prior to becoming a freelance writer. For correspondence - email: [email protected] Paul Aleixo and Claire Norris Comics, Reading and Primary Aged Children omics are often associated with entertainment. McCloud (1993) noted that Ccheapness, poor quality and we need to disassociate the form of comics disposability. Rarely have comics been seen from their content. In other words, while we as appropriate reading material for children. associate the medium of comics with Milliard and Marsh (2001) summarised juvenile humorous characters and the feelings about comics: superheroes these are not their only possible "Boys' comics have been thought to subject matter. promote violence, girls' to induce a soppy passivity based on a preoccupation with A Short History of Comics domesticity, appearance and dress which Most traditional 'histories' of comics denies girls' agency in the adult world". (p. begin around the turn of the 20th Century. 26). However, McCloud (1993) has pushed this They argued that as a society we do not back by several thousand years and notes value visual literacy and that a progression examples of early comics in Ancient in reading sophistication is assumed from Egyptian art and in the Bayeux tapestry. picture books to full text books. Early With the advent of western printing readers rely on pictures while good readers methods, comics began to expand. One use the text alone. early example is 'The Tortures of Saint Despite these problems however, we are Erasmus' published around 1460. William suggesting that comics can make good Hogarth's series of paintings (later printed reading materials for children. as engravings) called 'A Harlot's Progress' (1732) are 'comics' since they were displayed Defining Comics in a specific order so that the sequence of The clearest definition of comics comes paintings told a story. from McCloud (1993) who defined comics as The title of 'father' of modern comics is 'juxtaposed pictorial and other images in usually given to Rudolphe Töpffer who deliberate sequence, intended to convey produced satiric stories in the mid 1800s that information and/or to produce an aesthetic employed many of the conventions of response in the viewer' (p. 9). modern comics. These led on to caricatures Most people can recognise comics: in magazines that eventually developed into sequences of pictures accompanied by the comics we know today. It seems dialogue in word balloons or other text in therefore, that comics have a long and captions. The point is that it is the sequence (fairly) distinguished history. that is important in comics, so single panel cartoons, for example, cannot be considered Academic Interest in Comics comics. Early academic interest in comics was Bender (1999) argues that because comics generally derisive. The most famous are a relatively new medium they have often example was by American psychiatrist been treated as a less than legitimate form of Frederic Wertham (1954). He argued that 254b.qxd 29/11/2007 14:15 Page 71 Vol.25 No.4, 2007 Education and Health 71 comics were responsible for increased levels Oshiro, 1982). of delinquency in children. This led to a set of congressional hearings by the US Do Children Read Comics? government to ascertain the validity of his Reading surveys by Davis & Brember argument. While the hearings found no (1993); and Worthy, Moorman & Turner evidence to support Wertham's proposition, (1999) found that comics are in the top three it resulted in a voluntary system of choices of reading materials for primary censorship amongst American comics aged children. Millard (1997) and Hall & publishers. There have been other similar Coates (1999) found that boys tended to read 'crusades' against comics in different english comics more than girls. speaking countries (see Barker,1989). In a study involving over 18,000 children, Wertham's attacks on comics lacked any McKenna, Kear and Ellsworth (1991) found serious theoretical or empirical foundation that the proportion of boys reporting and modern investigations have suggested reading comics rose significantly from that the link between violence and comics is around 69% to 75% from the first to the sixth not well established. year in school. For girls they reported a Nevertheless, many authors believe that significant decline from 60% in the first year the impact of Wertham's criticisms is still to 50% in the sixth. being felt and has kept mainstream comics Worthy et al. (1999) and Ujiie & Krashen from developing as a true medium and (1996) found that children who read comics hence contributed to the enduring image of also read other books. comics as poor children's entertainment. It is worth pointing out that some Comics and Reading countries and cultures have embraced Arlin and Roth (1978) found that comics comics much more strongly than in the did not help poor readers. They did United States or Great Britain. In mainland acknowledge that children were interested Europe, comics are seen as a valuable in comics but they felt that the time spent medium appealing to children and adults looking at the pictures in comics was alike. Even more dramatic is the comics distracting. However, it may be that these (manga) industry in Japan. There, comics authors assumed that the only value of the size of telephone directories sell to 'reading' comics is about reading just the adults in millions every week. words rather than becoming involved in the It wasn't until the 1980s that mainstream story. comics began to be taken more seriously More recent work on comics and reading both in terms of content and style. It is has been more positive. Millard and Marsh notable that the concept of the 'graphic (2001) evaluated a scheme whereby primary novel' gained popularity at this time. aged children were given a class library of Along with this, comics have begun to be comics that they were allowed to take home. investigated academically. There have been They found that children liked taking attempts to study the role of comics as tools comics home; their teachers felt comics for teaching different subjects including encouraged reading; and felt that reading sociology and descriptive writing (e.g see comics would help children to interpret Burns, 1999; Snyder, 1997). Additionally, the books with pictures and text and finally that role of comics and general comprehension fathers and older brothers became more and memory (Brooks, 1977); and perceptual involved in reading with their children. skills (Singh, 1981) has been investigated as In a theoretical paper, Hallenbeck (1976) well as research into comics as a suggested that comics could be used to help 'pictographic' language (e.g. Fischer, 1984; children with learning difficulties. He 254b.qxd 29/11/2007 14:15 Page 72 72 Education and Health Vol.25 No.4, 2007 suggested a number of conventions in children. For example, there are 'tie ins' to comics that may be of benefit to those with films and cartoons that children already dyslexia and similar educational needs. He watch. Furthermore, we would argue that pointed particularly to the left-to-right comics should form part of the broader organisation of comics' panels, the use of selection of reading material available to simple upper case letters and the use of children and they have the advantage that symbols and context to help with they deal with stories and are thus more comprehension. allied to books rather than periodicals. The violence argument can be avoided by Can comics help reading? careful examination of the available comics. Clearly, more research is needed to We would urge those responsible for examine the effects of comics on reading choosing children's reading materials to ability in children. However, currently examine the comics first. some conclusions are possible: Finally, there is the fact that one of the · Firstly, children choose to read comics. criticisms of comics is unfounded. The idea · Secondly, those that read comics also that comics are more immature reading tend to read other materials. materials because they employ images · Thirdly, there is little evidence of shows a misunderstanding of the comics detrimental effects of reading comics. medium and also denies the lack of a It seems apparent, therefore, that theoretical or empirical support for this idea children should be encouraged to read in the first place. comics. The bottom line is that the enjoyment of In addition, comics are now available for reading can be fostered by the use of comics a range of different ages and in more regardless of whether children graduate to durable an accessible formats. The subject text only reading or not. They will be, after matter of comics is increasingly more wide all, enjoying their reading experiences. ranging and goes beyond the familiar juvenile humour and super-heroes. Reading Suggestions Additionally, comics publishers are For those unfamiliar with modern comics producing better quality material, both in we would first suggest looking at terms of content and format. 'Understanding Comics' by Scott McCloud, Having said this, there is still a great deal published by Harper Collins. This is an in- of 'room for improvement', especially in the depth investigation of comics written in need for comics that appeal to girls and for comics format. It is not recommended for comics that are produced in the UK. children but may give you an idea of the The other reason that we believe comics possibilities in comics.