USA Today ran a story over the weekend [story here…] about the growing prevalence of comics curricula in schools and the growing critical and academic respect of the art form. I had spoken with the reporter who wrote the article last week (I’m mentioned briefly in the article) so I had a good idea what the content of the article would be, and of course if you’re involved in comics and education there’s not a whole lot of new information there. What is interesting, though, is the comments section.
If, like me, you’re someone who’s interested in comics and cartooning, it’s easy to be overly Pollyanna-ish about the recent explosion of interest in comics and graphic novels from “legitimate” fields. I’ve heard more than one high-profile cartoonist proclaim recently that comics, as an art form, has “arrived.” It’s certainly easy to think so, if all you’re taking in are the NY Times Review of Books and the voluminous praise from various hipster/literati sources of the recent deluge of “comics memoirs” (Persepolis, Fun Home, stuff of that ilk). On the other hand, a quick glance at the comments section of this USA Today article provides a sobering, and probably more realistic, idea of what the current status of the art form is among the general public: just one more foolish pursuit folks are engaging in instead of, you know, something truly worthwhile, like learning how to make nuculer weapons for warding off the Mooslims and the Chinamen. It’s not too late to learn to be a nuclear engineer, Chris Ware!
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