ABSTRACT
It is an exciting time for comic books. To say that this literary form is beginning to move out of its specialist niche and step, blinking, into the sunshine of the mainstream is not merely wishful thinking on the part of comic book readers. The medium as a whole has always struggled to be accepted as a respectable part of Britain’s artistic culture and is often characterised as the enfant terrible of literature, the mischievous and somewhat immature younger sibling of the novel. Yet in recent years, there have been subtle yet undeniable indicators of a surge in the popularity of comic books and graphic novels in both Britain and America and sales figures reflect this.1 André Breedt, a representative for Nielsen BookScan, a book-sales data organisation, identifies Manga (Japanese comic books) and graphic novels as the literary market’s ‘most spectacular area of growth in recent years’, adding the impressive statistic that recently ‘sales have increased by almost 100 per cent year-on-year’ (cited in Brown 2009: 11). Elsewhere, the demand for comic book characters and stories is also evident, albeit in different media forms. In 2008, the biggest film worldwide was Christopher Nolan’s Batman adaptation The Dark Knight (which took over $1 billion), and Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, based on the Marvel comic, was also one of the ten biggest films of the year (Box Office Mojo 2009a).2 Evidence of the increasing popularity of the comic book, however, is more than just pecuniary. Recently, the School Library Association published the latest in its series of recommended reading for boys. Subtitled Boys into Books, the lists of titles are divided into age-differentiated sections such as 5-11 and 11-14. The author of the former, Chris Brown, recognises that ‘pictures are important’, noting that they ‘often add far more to the information than is relayed by the words alone’ and later goes on to identify comics as a valuable medium, criticising snobbish attitudes towards them. While both Brown’s list and the 11-14 version do include some graphic novels and recommend that picture books can and should be read by older children, neither list is ideal. Brown’s acknowledgement of the popularity of comic books and their ‘ever-eager readership’ is not truly reflected in the list, where the titles which are comics in the purest sense of the word in fact constitute only a tiny proportion of the recommended reading (2008: 11-12). In addition, many of the comic books selected (such as Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel and Point Blanc: The Graphic Novel), while good quality, are adaptations of existing novels, not original stories, which seems to imply that comic books are only really to be used as vehicles to retell prose narratives. Another negative aspect of the lists is their stubborn and unhelpful gender assumptions when
there is absolutely no reason why comic books cannot be enjoyed by girls as well as boys. To be fair, the School Library Association has not yet published a corresponding publication for girls, but the boys’ lists do reinforce the traditional view that comics are primarily for males. Of course, it is easy to criticise the Boys into Books project but it should be reiterated that any officially sanctioned document which shows even a minute awareness of the existence of comic books, let alone promotes their use, is certainly a positive thing. The publication can only be considered a step in the right direction by those who recognise the potential which comic books have for literacy work.
