would be the librarian for comics
here at the University, Carter’s
username suits him quite nicely —
little did he know he would be saving
the world of comics for students.
As comics make an appearance
in the library and foreign language
courses, they’re also beginning
to make their way into teaching
styles and other areas of academia.
Gina Brandolino, lecturer in the
Sweetland Center for Writing and
the Department of English, and
Ali Shapiro, lecturer in Sweetland,
the School of Art & Design and
the English Department Writing
Program, are setting the stage for
the future of comics in academia.
To truly understand their love
and admiration for comics, Shapiro
sent me a self-designed graphic,
which resembles both her and
Brandolino at their individual desks,
reading comics and continuously
passing
on
information
and
commentary about them. While
both are avid comic book readers,
the two have the opportunity to
discuss and teach comics (yes, just
comics) in a classroom setting this
summer.
“When
we
learned
about
the opportunity to teach a class
together, it seemed obvious that
would be a great class and, for me,
a good opportunity to think more
about pedagogy and comics with
somebody really useful to do that
with,” Brandolino wrote in an email
interview with The Daily.
In the past, Brandolino has
taught all-comic courses through
the English Department, with
themes relating to fame and infamy,
and topics revolving around place.
“Teaching comics is pretty far
outside my wheelhouse. I was
trained as a medievalist, so I relied
on the help of a good number of
people to make the class work,”
Brandolino said.
Luckily, alongside Brandolino is
Shapiro, someone who draws her
own comics and teaches in LSA and
the School of Art & Design.
“I started drawing comic strips
for my high school paper and
eventually became the comics
editor. My college application essay
was a three-page comic essay,”
Shapiro wrote. Between them and
their dabbles in comics, the two are
sure to bring an array of knowledge
and enthusiasm to the course.
Comics can be action-packed,
entertaining
and
effulgent
—
adjectives that a comics neophyte
like myself would relate to something
along the lines of superheroes — but
Brandolino and Shapiro brought
my attention to comics that were
down-to-earth and realistic. Many
of these pieces, though in the genres
of magical realism, mystery, fiction,
fantasy and even horror, allude to
everyday challenges that people
face in reality.
Brandolino’s favorite comic, “My
Favorite Thing Is Monsters” by
Emil Ferris, tells the story of Karen,
a little girl growing up in 1960s
Chicago.
“She has a hard time fitting in at
school and, as a way to cope with
that and some other hard things
going on in her life, pretends she is a
werewolf,” she wrote.
Shapiro added that she has
“also really been enjoying Michael
DeForge, particularly his book
‘Big Kids,’ which is just so weird
and imaginative (spoiler alert:
people turn into trees).” Despite the
imaginary and fantastical elements
in the stories, they propose real
characters who encounter situations
with
coming-of-age,
murder,
Holocaust survivors and complex
relationships. We’re not just talking
about cute Snoopy comics anymore.
With this in mind, Brandolino
and
Shapiro
described
their
intentions for their summer comic
course and their hopes for students
to read comics in a new light. A
portion of their class description
proposes the analysis of reading
comics through a social justice lens:
“Comics
also
raise
great
questions about justice, pushing
us to redefine ‘good guys’ and
‘bad guys,’ explore marginalized
perspectives and interrogate our
expectations of what people, places
and things ‘should’ look like. Indeed,
comics are just as worthy of careful
attention and analysis as are the
literary ‘classics’ we typically think
of as appropriate reading for school.”
While we can read comics as
a form of entertainment or solely
as fictional stories, they exist
to serve a greater purpose. As
Dave Carter mentioned to me,
Joe Sacco’s “Palestine” and John
Lewis’s “March: Book 1,” are both
nonfiction accounts of activism
and calls to social justice. And yes,
they’re graphic novels.
We have comics that are fun, we
have comics that are serious; we
have comics that are magical and
comics that are realistic. We have
comics about kids getting bit by
radioactive spiders (“The Amazing
Spider-Man”) and comics reflecting
on coming-of-age and sexuality
(“Fun Home”). My only question is:
Where does it all, this art form and
this educational platform, go from
here?
“For sure, comics are starting
to assert themselves as a serious
art form in general, and that, I
suspect, will continue to happen. I
see comics playing an increasingly
greater role in college classrooms
in the future,” Brandolino wrote.
“Comics are for me, in most senses,
just like any other kind of text —
they tell stories that demand close
and careful attention, that you get
more out of the more time you spend
looking deeply into them. I don’t
treat a comic less seriously than a
short story, for instance. I think it
deserves the same level of serious
consideration as any story.”
Though we see how comics are
breaking boundaries and are now
being considered pieces of literature,
we can’t forget how comics can
benefit us as readers, students and
educators.
Carter, Brandolino and Shapiro
all touched on the idea that reading
a comic or a graphic novel is still
different than reading most texts.
They’re not all necessarily linear,
where we can read line by line
and left to right like we would
with any typical piece of English
literature. You’re hit all at once
with scenes, images, descriptions
and dialogue — details that need to
be noticed in order to comprehend
and appreciate that of a comic or
graphic novel. In some way, graphic
novels put us all on a similar scale
of reading pace, where we take our
time, live in the present of each
panel and use our brains to read
literature in a way with which we
aren’t familiar.
“They’ve (comics) still got a
rich history of telling stories that
might otherwise be marginalized,
or telling stories in weird ways,”
Shapiro explained. “I think it
matters now, more than ever, that
those stories are heard, read, seen,
drawn.”
I think about my bookshelf at
home, where “Welcome to the
Jungle” is probably sitting among
the dust of all my other pre-college
texts. It sits between famous works
like
“Slaughterhouse-Five”
and
“The Shining.” I only ever thought
of Harry Dresden, the fantastic
wizard detective character, as
another figure that young, comic-
reading boys would aspire to be.
Man, was I wrong.
Nonetheless,
I
realize
now
that stories like “Welcome to the
Jungle” are no different than if
my dad gave me a book from the
“Harry Potter” or the “Percy
Jackson” series. Their characters,
their downfalls and their lessons
all derive from a similar place: They
all know how to tell a good story.
I never thought that something
like Butcher’s graphic novel could
actually help me learn more about
literature,
colloquial
language,
design and formatting, storytelling
and so much more.
As the future of art in academia
evolves, similar to how we are now
analyzing rap songs and children’s
television shows, I see the place that
comics and graphic novels have
in educational settings. I can only
hope that my kids grow up reading
graphic novels in school and learn
to value their importance, which is
something I unfortunately missed
out on growing up.
To fill my regret and to pursue
my new interest in graphic novels,
I went to the University’s library
search engine, Mirlyn, and typed
in “Welcome to the Jungle.” I think
it’s time to give it another read.
2B —Thursday, January 18, 2018
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Courtesy of Shapiro
Thinking outside the panel: A look
at comics in the classroom & beyond
B-SIDE LEAD
When I was younger, my dad gave
me the graphic novel “Welcome
to the Jungle,” the prequel to Jim
Butcher’s novel series “The Dresden
Files.”
“It’s about a detective who’s also
a wizard,” my dad told me. “I think
you’ll like it.” Sure, I liked science
fiction and mystery, I read the work
of authors like Kurt Vonnegut,
Alice Sebold and Stephen King. But
those books consisted of thousands
of words and dragged along for
hundreds of pages. No images or
drawings or graphics. “Welcome
to the Jungle” would be my first
graphic novel, so I wasn’t quite sure
what to think.
Flash forward to this past Friday
when Dave Carter — video games
archivist, comics librarian and
reference services coordinator at the
University of Michigan’s Duderstadt
Center on North Campus — asked
me: “So are you much of a comics
person?” I was nervous to say no.
I enjoyed the idea of comics as an
artistic platform and as a method
of storytelling, but I never read
any except for the one my dad gave
me. But there I was, interviewing a
comics aficionado and the man who
runs the comics collection, and I
was giving him a blank stare.
“My dad’s really into them,” I
told him. “What’s the one about
the detective but he’s a wizard?”
He politely told me he hasn’t heard
of it, so I was back to square one:
naïveté about comics and little to
no connection with them. I soon
realized
those
notions
would
quickly change.
About 13 years ago, the University
opened a collection devoted to
comics and graphic novels, mainly
for Art & Design students and
anyone else who was interested.
Now with around 10,000 graphic
novels and 700 to 800 mini-comics
(self-published,
“grassroots”-type
comics), the collection has made
a hefty dent in the University’s
libraries and provides a service for a
variety of students.
Carter
is
responsible
for
selecting the comics that go into the
collection, mainly ordering from
Vault of Midnight, a comic shop
right here in Ann Arbor. Regardless
of the new comics Carter orders,
he’s also in charge of selecting
comics from donations.
I walked into Carter’s office
when suddenly, I was hit with
piles – loaded piles – of donated
comics and graphic novels. But it’s
not that people get sick of them
or that they’re outdated – like any
good story, you pass it on, and
that’s what the donations do for the
future students who will access the
collection.
“I’m building a collection for the
person who’s going to be researching
comics 20, 50, 100 years from now,”
Carter said. “Today’s trash culture is
tomorrow’s high culture.”
Gathering comics in today’s age,
even the less popular ones, will be
relevant for someone in the near
future. Comics are on the rise, and
therefore the next generation of
comic book readers need a collection
worthy of their time.
Carter went on to explain his
process in choosing which comics
go into the collection. His goal is to
“identify key comics from around
the world,” where he finds a wide
variety in the world of comics. He
tackles projects where he chooses
to focus on comics and comic series
from certain regions of the world,
ranging from Eastern Europe, Latin
America, Africa and soon South
Asia. And before Friday, I only knew
of “Superman,” “Peanuts” and
anime, let alone comics originating
from all around the world.
In the mindset of diversifying
the collection, Carter also looks at
marginalized authors and stories.
Instead of solely stories about
white, male superheroes, comics
about magical realism or realistic
fiction are chosen. He will choose
comics that reach out to different
audiences, like children, college
students and adults. Additionally,
female authors, authors of color
and queer-identifying authors are
factors in the collection selection.
Another essential part of Carter’s
job is going around to different
classes and telling students and
professors
about
the
comics
section. Communication Studies
and English are two courses Carter
speaks to because they discuss
how comics are both a form of
storytelling and entertainment. But
the classes finding it most useful
are foreign language courses like
German, French and Italian.
Instead of reading novels with
texts, students are reading graphic
novels in these classes. Carter
described how graphic novels give
the reader “visual clues” that allow
one to better understand phrases or
words because of their coinciding
images. These graphic novels have
a “big use of colloquial language,”
he added, which helps students
further their comprehension of the
language.
During the interview, Carter
showed me pieces that were not
displayed in the public collection but
instead were stored privately due to
older, more fragile binding or ones
that are oversized.
He pulled out a book that had
to be 3x3 feet, opening it gently to
show me the fluorescent drawings
of the famous comic “Little Nemo”
by Winsor McCay. Dating all the
way back as early as 1905, the
story of Little Nemo dreams these
extraordinary dreams, only to
awaken by the end of the strip.
Carter explained to me how comics
used to be full-page spreads in these
old-fashioned newspapers, not the
tiny, two to three block comics we
get in print now.
There was something about
it: its vibrancy, its imagery, its
eye-catching size, its age. I was
absorbed into the strokes of “Little
Nemo.” Though anyone could pick
up a paper and be entertained by
McCay’s character, it hit me how
much comics have evolved from
newspapers to web-forms and now
to full-length pieces of literature.
Comics have made and continue to
make a distinct impact on society,
both educationally and socially.
Carter’s phone sat on the table
during the interview. His phone
case has the image of the Superman
“S,” big and bold in red and blue.
In that moment, the connection
occurred to me: His email is
superman@umich.edu.
“I chose that (username) back
in 1989 when I was a freshman
in Engineering,” he said. They
told him to “pick something you’ll
remember.”
“So I picked ‘Superman’ as my
ID,” Carter said. Not knowing he
ERIKA SHEVCHEK
Daily Arts Writer
While we can
read comics
as a form of
entertainment or
solely as fictional
stories, they exist
to serve a greater
purpose
Haley McLaughlin/DAILY
Though we
see how comics
are breaking
boundaries and
are now being
considered pieces
of literature, we
can’t forget how
comics can benefit
us as readers,
students and
educators