Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

Talking Pictures

By Regie Rigby

Time I think for a bit of a refocusing exercise.

As is usually the case in the run up and immediate aftermath of Bristol, Fool has been somewhat reviews heavy over recent weeks. This isn’t a bad thing as such – I mean my brief here is to “talk about comics”, which would most certainly include reviews. But I’ve always tried to make this column more than just reviews, so while there are a few books I found at Bristol that I wanted to talk about, I’m going to leave them awhile and move on.

I’ve been thinking in particular about the way comics are perceived by those people who don’t really read or understand them – which sadly continues to be “most people”. Reactions really are quite strange, at least from my point of view, and I wonder if they can tell us anything.

This whole train of thought was started by a programme on BBC Radio 4 earlier this week. “A good read” is a book recommendation show. Every week the regular host and two guests recommend a paperback, explain why they chose it and discuss it amongst themselves. One of the books up for consideration in this week’s show was Marjane Satrapi’s rather wonderful graphic narrative Persepolis.

I was interested to hear a Graphic Novel discussed on the show – Radio 4 is quite an open minded place, and comics aren’t unknown there, but this is the first time A Good Read has ever covered one. The discussion was lively – one of the guests hated it – although not because of the format – and there were some fairly strong views about the writing style. All grist to the book discussion mill, of course, and it never does any harm for comics to be discussed in the mainstream intellectual media.

What struck me though, was the final comment on the book by the show’s host, veteran BBC journalist Sue McGregor. She said that “Persepolis is published by Jonathan Cape at £14.99, which is quite expensive for a paperback, but I suppose it’s because of all the little drawings.”

“All the little drawings?!”

Not a reaction I ever would have expected. I mean, obviously, if you choose to consider them in that way, a comics panel is a little drawing.* But it wouldn’t occur to me to think of comics panels in that way. They’re so clearly part of a whole, like members of a cricket team** panels are potentially great in combination, but only a few are any good on their own, and even the ones that make an impression in isolation are ultimately a bit pointless without the rest.

But should I be surprised at McGregor’s reaction? Is it just us (or even just me that sees the inextricable link between comics panels? Does the whole of the rest of the world see them as “little drawings”? The guest on the show that didn’t enjoy the book actually went so far as to blame the “smudgy pictures” for taking away her ability to imagine what things would look like.

Is this an objection that a lot of people have? It’s a truism that “all the best pictures are on the radio”, and as an avid reader of prose novels, I can relate to the almost creative pleasure you have as a reader in creating your own vision of a character. But while graphic narrative takes that particular joy away from you, it replaces it with so many wonders that conventional prose can never deliver.

Comics are a visual medium. There’s a lot going on in those “little drawings”, and they convey information that simple words never could. Now, I get that some people might just not be visual people, and that such people might indeed not really be able to enjoy the glory of comics. I just think that such people must be pretty rare amongst the sighted community. I have certainly never heard people level such criticism at TV or movies – so why pick on comics?

It’s an irrational prejudice that seems to afflict people who read a lot of prose. Movies and the telly don’t involve reading****, so they don’t have to worry about paying attention to the images on the screen. Comics though, they do involve reading, and culturally there’s a bit of baggage connected to the combination of words and pictures.

When you’re learning to read in most Western schools you start with picture books. The better you get at reading, the smaller and further apart the pictures get, until you graduate to “proper books” and the pictures disappear altogether. I still remember the rosy glow of pride I got when, aged five, I read my first “proper” book.

Obviously I got over that, mostly because I’m not five anymore, but then I’m not somebody who makes their living by telling people how intellectual I am. If I was maybe that old five year old pride would reassert itself. Oh, I’m sure that people who don’t “get” the pictures in comics aren’t deliberately being intellectual snobs, but somewhere in their subconscious their five year old selves are screaming “but I can read big kids’ books!” and they can never really get past that.

Is that a problem?

I mean, it’s easy enough to say “their loss” and shrug it off. But there are an awful lot of potential readers out there who have an “inner five year old”, and the more who let that petulant little git hold sway the fewer people to spend their hard earned cash on the comics we love, which ultimately means fewer comics.

This is a bad thing.

So what do we do?

Well, revolutionising the way we teach children to read would probably sort the issue out in a generation or two, but I can’t really be bothered to wait that long, and even if I could I doubt the combined education systems of the English speaking world are going to pay that much attention to me.

Any other ideas?







*Unless it’s a splash page, in which case it’s a big drawing. But you get the idea.

**Insert team sport of your choice here – the analogy still works. It’s just that Cricket is the only good team sport.***

***Except Rugby.

****Unless you’re the only person who actually reads the credits.