“Comics are simpler and dumber than ever". Comics are on the
verge of something, something significant, in America. American
comics are finally catching up with their European and Japanese
contemporaries, gaining the respect and recognition that they
richly deserve. Comics are drawing inspiration from movies,
which attract the Hollywood mainstream to write even bigger and
better stories. The same thing works in reverse as well.
Comics are traditionally printed in newspapers or comic
books.
Pictures deliberately juxtaposed for narrative, explanatory
or artistic intent are comics, no matter where they appear. If
they appear in a bound book, they're comic books. Pictures have
illustrated words and words have explained pictures since the
beginning of time. Somebody reads a dull comic and extrapolates
rules from it.
Comics are more like poems than novels. You can read a lot
of the things; collect them in your head. Comics are more
intellectually stimulating than most media, and it’s a shame
they’re a dying art form. But it’s not because of torrents, its
because America is getting stupider by the day. Comics are
media hybrids, combining words and images (including both
representations and symbols). Not all comics have words and
some artists pride themselves on telling stories purely through
images.
Comics are still not considered "reading" by too many
educators; an attitude that persists even though when a student
is reading a comic (especially a good one) he or she is
actually reading on three different levels. Comics present
powerful stories in a way that appears simple at first, but is
actually a complex cognitive task. Comics are static images,
animation is non-static. Because historically animation often
uses a pared down iconography that resembles popular cartoon
imagery, the distinction between comics and animation is not
made by the general public. Comics are a way to supplement what
you’re already studying in class. Use books from the Graphic
Classics series, which include graphic novels and stories from
H.G.
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