Comic Books As Literature College Course

Turn it into an 'exemplary reading' course

I think the mistake would be the desire to elevate super-hero comics as serious works of literature. With the possible exception of Watchmen, I can't think of any super-hero comics I would consider. That aside -

-Stuck Rubber Baby -Maus (only comic to win Pulitzer) -Fax from Sarajevo -Palestine -Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (brilliant) -All of Will Eisner's graphic novels -you could include some of the western historicals by Jacky Jackson -American Splendor

That's just what I could think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there is more and better out there that I don't even know about. I haven't even touched on European or Japanese work.

Super-heroes don't make for great literature. When I think of great characters in literature I think of a finite story of which they were a part. Characters like Superman are more of a template for stories. I think we have to catagorize them in a different fashion.

But I'm probably wrong....

I think you're right about studying the superhero genre as literature.Despite my love of those books, I have to admit there's just not that much to study. But what about books such as art spiegelman's Maus, Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, Lynda Barry's books, Ben Katchor's Julius Knipl and Jew of New York, Eddie Campbell's Alec stories, Dan Clowes' Caricature and Eightball # 22 (I know most people prefer his Ghost World and David Boring books, but I find them a little too glib) , Harvey Pekar's American Splendor and My Cancer Year, Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde, or the collected works of Los Bros Hernandez from Love & Rockets. I'm sure there are many other titles that people can think of outside the superhero/action/adventure/fantasy genres.

I think you're right! I forgot Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby and Jaxon's work, both of which I love. Jaxon's 'The Alamo' is excellent. I'm only slowly getting into Japanese manga (the threads about it recently have been a great help) so I don't really have any recommendations in that vein. My European collection is pretty small,but a few works I've read that might warrant study are Jose Munoz and Carlos Sampayo's 'Joe's Bar', 'Sinner', and 'Billie Holiday' and Marti's 'The Cabbie'.

I'm not suggesting that any certain comics are or are not 'serious works of literature. One could argue that any text is literture that can be studied and critiqued by a class as a learning experiment.

When I was in college I took a 'Readings in Literature: Science Fiction' course that spent a lot of time discussing Joesph Campbell and featured a reading list that included a number of fairly recent sci-fi novels and anthologies. The course was simple covering the genre of science fiction and presented a sampling of work that could be read and discussed. The individual works may not have been literary classics, but they each did include elements associated with the science fiction genre. I can't recall all the assignments, but I know 'Stranger in a Strange Land', 'Millenium', and '2001' were some of the novels covered.

A course on comics would be an important way to educate people on one of the few art forms to originate in the United States. It would most likely be the type of course that would attract students just looking to fulfill a basic humanities elective requirement.

However, what I was suggesting was a course that studied the art form of comic books. You hit the history and you cover a sampling of work in the medium which would include a few comics. It wouldn't dwell on superhero comics any more than an introductory film class would dwell on a particular genre of film.

In the world of literature, Stan Lee may not be considered in the same company as Mark Twain and Shakespeare or even lesser writers, but he is an important comic book writer since he did introduce the idea of using more sophisticated language for mor educated readers while using complex characterizations.

The medium of comics may have gone on to produce more sophisticated stuff than the stories of Stan Lee, but I think you need to spend a little time covering the pioneers of the industry.

Certainly some of those would be covered, but you also have to cover superhero comics, war comics, funny animal comics, romance comics, horror comics, etc. just to look at the various genres. Most individual issues of comics can be read fairly quickly, so you could do a quick and broad overview of the artform and genres early in the semester in order to lay the groundwork necessary to understand and appreciate the more complex material you mentioned.

I say you would need to assign at least the Superman story from Action Comics #1, Amazing Fantasy #15 (perhaps Stan Lee's greatest single story), I would go with a Jack Cole Plastic Man story, a Golden Age Batman tale, a Carl Bark's Donald Duck, an issue of Archie, some of the EC horror stuff, a fairly standard war comic (Sgt. Rock?), and other single issues that represent genres. You could incorporate some contemporary comics since you are just looking at genres.

Certainly some manga would need to be covered, perhaps a little Lone Wolf & Cub.

It's not necessarily that they are great literature, although many will argue that there are certain superhero comics that are, it's more that superhero comics do play an important role in the history of comics. My suggestion was for a literature course that studied the comic book art form with an overview of the history of the industry and selected readings.

CSPAN recently ran a series of programs taped at a college that had a history course on the Clinton presidency. If that can be a college course, then certainly we could have a comic book course.

I think it would be really cool if one of the greats of the industry such as Denny O'Neil or Marv Wolfman, would teach such a course at a university as a adjuct professor. Those guys certainly have the knowledge of the industry to really be able to properly educate people on the fundementals.

I would add the Amazing Fantasy 15 AND a current Spidey book to contrast the growth/maturation of comic writing; maybe ASM v2, #36.

100 Bullets might be a fine additino, and in fact there are already English Lit courses teaching it. Watchmen gets a common mention.

My wife actually is in charge of custom publishing at San Francisco State, and the teachers who do stuff at Kinkos themselves are committing serious copyright violations and exposing the UNIVERSITY to serious liability, so the brass are really cracking down on that. She works with the publishers, and they're generally reasonable

In article

Au contraire. Humanities 225 (something like 'Values in American Life' at San Francisco State University uses Watchmen as a text (also reads Huck Finn, Civil Disobediance and other essays, Maus, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, among other titles). Maus I and II are used in something like 10 classes, ranging from humanities, English and history.

Heck, Berkeley has offered a Simpsons as a reflection of modern values

Well, since comics are extensions of classic mythology, I can't see why they can't be referred to in a literary context, especially if the course is, say, about archetypal theories of literary criticism. Comics are heavily influenced by archetypal patterns.

In addition, I took a semiotics class in university and we actually took a quick look at the semiological phenomenon of comics throughout the span of its sixty-five years. We studied how our cultural expectations are deep-rooted in comics and that they can be seen in everything from the comic's art to its narration and dialogue to its

I always thought the parallels between Superman and Jesus Christ were quite blatant yet interesting.