in which I get ticked off by the par of the course

[cerusee]

I applaud the intent, I really do. And I am happy to witness another case of comics/graphic novels/manga etc succeeding in bringing young readers to the table where other kinds of reading material are not presently working. I believe comics/graphic novels/manga etc are valid forms of reading in and of themselves, and therefore people sharing my interest in those forms make me happy; I also feel that they need no defense.

But this has been eating away at me all day, because it's flat-out wrong. The graphic novels that are bringing all the kids to the yard do not have "more words than, say, The Green Lantern." If anything, "Naruto. One Piece. Shojo. Manga," have far FEWER words than the superhero comic books that the reporter probably didn't actually grow up reading, and although I know that cannot be the only factor involved with the boom of comics/graphic novels/manga today, I remain firmly convinced that it is an important factor.

I am annoyed because, even though I am a serious bibliophile and fluent reader of prose books, I am not comfortable with the implicit value system assigned to the ratio of words to image in a words/art fusion, with the most words being the best, and the fewest words being the least worthy of consumption by teens and other living things. It's patently ridiculous in the article itself--note that Marvel Zombies is included in the group of graphic novels with "more words than...The Green Lantern"--and teeth-grindingly obvious that the "more words" value system has been externally applied to justify the popularity that the reporter can't actually understand.

Why would librarians endorse these new-fangled "graphic novels," when everyone knows that comics are trash? How can these graphic novels have merit as reading material? They must be "a hybrid of novel and comic book," which is to say, comics with extra words. Words are good. Art is bad. Remember this value system, folks; we will be quizzing you later.

It narcs me off because it's a stupid value system, and a snobby one, particularly coming from someone with such a hideous and stiff writing style. It also narcs me off because it's not true, and no amount of incompetent and uninspired reporting is ever going to inure me to media falsities.

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

(Heh, your icon! My fav. part of Lucky Star!)

I agree with you: the tone of that article was condescending and downright disrespectful to the students being written about. It's a disturbing trend that I notice about coverage of manga and graphic novels; the writers assume so much about the books they're writing about, but never actually read them.

I also agree with you about the value judgments on the words/pictures ratio. I've read War and Peace, and I do love all those words jammed into those 2,000 pages; it's an amazing read. Equally amazing and epic is Howard Cruise's Stuck Rubber Baby or Spiegelman's Maus. The fact that the second two happen to be graphic novels doesn't diminish their literary value and emotional impact on the reader.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I do realize that many if not most of the journalists who do these inane news articles on graphic novels are totally unfamiliar with the subject, and that is the reason for the inanity and errors and insulting value judgments. But reporters are also supposed to do research for their articles, and if they think something isn't newsworthy enough to merit enough research to be sure of understanding it, why are they writing about it? "It was my editor's idea, not mine," is a good enough reason for not being wildly enthusiastic about a subject, but not for doing a half-assed job with it.

Aaargh.

There was an article in the New Yorker some months back, discussing Proust and the Squid and the science of reading and the human brain, which, after discussing the science of video games and the brain, gently suggested that mental benefit of reading lay not in it being difficult than other ways of learning, but in being easier--once you are a quick and able reader of words, you have more brainspace free to think critically about what's being conveyed to you than you do with any other kind of communication.

(I find it much, much easier to read critically than to listen critically; when I'm listening to someone talk, I have to concentrate a lot harder just to follow a line thought and remember what was said before. Some people obviously find critical listening easier than I do, but there's a lot to suggest that this is what separates a literate society from a non-literate society--the latter has to spend a lot more time and energy just trying not to forget important things.) For this reason, I will not make overly much of the fact that I find it takes more of my mental energy to read a wordless graphic novel than any kind of writing less complex than the text of a House bill. But hell! Fewer words doesn't mean something's necessarily easier to understand! And anybody who claims it doesn't understand much about the science of communication.