ABSTRACT
Historically, comics have been popular reading materials for youth, and their content and communities an important part of youth culture. By contrast, educational and cultural institutions and the mainstream media have consistently diminished or attacked their value. Education and library and information studies (LIS) share a historical and contemporary interest in developing an understanding of and, more significantly, an applicability of the medium of comics. In their historical overviews, Nyberg and Tilley thoroughly review these fields. The LIS professional literature tends to have a utilitarian goal, offering librarians the necessary information and tools to select, acquire and organise comics as well as ideas to develop programmes and activities that use those comics, leaving little room to explore the reasons for readers' attraction to comics. Parents, teachers and librarians expected comics reading to be a phase and if readers became committed to the form, their experience was linked to the fan identity and the practices that come with it.
