"Comic Books: An Evolving Multimodal Literacy"

About the Author

Taylor Quimby graduated from Keene State College in 2010 with an individualized major in Aesthetic Studies. He currently works as a board operator and afternoon host for New Hampshire Public Radio.  An avid reader of both comics and philosophy, Taylor also enjoys spending his time playing the ukulele, video games, and writing plays.  Taylor lives in Hooksett, New Hampshire, with his family.

Contents

Introduction

Defining the Comic

The Speech Balloon...

Consider the speech...

Literacy and content

Literacy events    

Other Representations

Conclusion

Works Cited

5. Conclusion

To concentrate on what comic books don’t do as well as other mediums and art forms is reductive.  Carrier, in The Aesthetics of Comics, falls into this trap more than once, going as far as to say, “Imagine a theater with a soundproof glass wall between actors and audience, and with the spectators reading the dialogue from supertitles.  Seeing a play in such a theater would be like reading comics” (29).  It ought to be pointed out that comics are not bound by any of the laws of physics that theatrical productions are.  They are capable of depicting worlds of visual fantasy and heroic action that could never take place on stage.  Comics are capable of much that theater is not, just as theater has many aesthetic strengths that comic books do not.

Close-minded comparisons as these reflect an old view of literacy as fixed, unchanging skills, removed from the context of their use.   But in a world where the meaning of literacy is relative to its context, comics are a unique multimodal medium to be celebrated and studied with the same analytic solidarity as any other.  Comics utilize a unique, multimodal design grammar to create complex narratives.  During a time where the educational value and prominence of multimodal media is being emphasized, this arguably increases the relevance of comics in today’s world.  Comics represent literacy as contextually and culturally situated practices and advocate other types of literature than may have been disregarded critically – further evidence that perceptions of comic books as a subliterate medium are exaggerated.  The artists and writers that create comic books are also creating literate worlds, forming evolving ideas about multimodality in society.

Comic books have a history of controversy, but their future remains invisible.  How the medium will be utilized has as much to do with society’s needs as anything else.  When we understand literacies as intrinsically situated within culture and context, we understand that the place of comics in history is fluid -- the same as any other medium.  Right now, however, it is safe to say that the unique and multimodal comic book is far from subliterate.