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.

Hey, Teacher! Leave Them Comics Alone!

By Regie Rigby

Regular readers will know that my day job is teaching English in a secondary school in the north of England. Except I’m not anymore – at least not for my Year Eleven students, because they’ve already taken their G.C.S.E. English exams. Now, for the rest of the year, they’re taking G.C.S.E. Media Studies.

Yeah, I know. “Why do we care about your day job?” I can hear you ask. Well, actually in this case, you should be at least a little bit interested because you know what? In addition to guiding my students on investigations into film, TV and the like I’M TEACHING COMICS IN SCHOOL! FOR AN EXAM SUBJECT!

Sorry.

Oh, hang on –

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Finally. For the last six years I’ve been trying to get my colleagues to use comics in their teaching. When nobody has been looking I’ve snuck comics into all sorts of lessons, and on occasion I’ve been both ridiculed and criticized for it. And now? Now I’m the departmental expert on one of the twin exam focuses (can you have a twin focus?) in a major examination subject. Now, the bastards have got to take comics seriously.

This is a good thing. There really is no reason why graphic narrative shouldn’t be studied along with other forms of story telling. I mean, I’m a serious English Teacher and everything, I love my novels, (member in good standing of the Jane Austen Society) I love my poetry, I love my theatre. I love anything that deals in stories, and I’ve never really understood why some media are given intellectual precedence over others.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to argue that Green Arrow is on a par with Shakespeare*, because it isn’t. But is the medium of theatre inherently superior to the medium of comics? Absolutely not. I don’t doubt that there have been some bloody awful comics in the past** - I’ve bought a few stinkers in my time and left even more of ‘em on the rack. But then in my capacity as a cultured man of letters I’ve had to sit through a fair few bloody rotten plays. I’ve read the odd dodgy novel in my time too.

So has everyone else that reads novels and watches plays. Read the review section of any quality paper, and you’ll see what I mean. Whatever medium you choose there is an awful lot of crap out there. Does that mean we relegate theatre and novels to the realms of, to borrow Alan Moore’s memorable phrase “kids and semi-literates”?

Hell no.

So why do people denigrate comics in such a way? I mean, I’m not even talking about intellectual snobs here. I’ve had kids I teach disparage comics in such terms – and these are people who think that Hollyoaks*** and The O.C. are high art! Seriously, what’s their problem?

The popular response from the “arty” comics types is that the crux of the problem is Superheroes.**** The contention is that all these gaudy characters running around in their undies, fighting crime and brooding on rooftops makes us look ridiculous and cheapens the medium in the mind of the mundane public.

It’s an attractive argument. It’s bollocks, but it’s an attractive argument. It can’t possibly be true though. I mean the part about the Spandex Brigade looking silly is a fair point. They do. No, it’s the part about the general public giving a toss about the bulk of any medium’s output being silly that doesn’t work for me. I mean, you’ve seen the TV lately, right? I’ve been thinking about it, and I genuinely can’t remember a time when the same sort of proportion of comics’ output was dedicated to the sort of rancid old toss we get on TV these days.

Oh, and the show that everyone is raving about? Heroes.

Seriously.

It’s enough to make you spit. Tell me now that the general public can’t take superheroes seriously! I mean, far be it from me to utter geek blasphemy here, but Heroes isn’t even that good! It certainly isn’t a particularly original idea – comics stories with similar themes have been around since the dawn of the X-Men at the very least.*****

So what is it?

Partly perhaps the blame lies with some of my colleagues in education. After all, in the first years of school kids are weaned off the books with pictures (which I heard a primary teacher refer to as “baby books” very recently) onto “proper” books. They are encouraged to see this as a step on the way to growing up, and it’s the less advanced or less able kids who read picture books the longest.

And don’t look at me like that – you know that’s how the six year olds see it, no matter how much I, with my professional educator’s hat on, might wish such perceptions were otherwise. Prejudices formed at a young age are often with us for life – especially the ones that are shared by the vast majority of the populous.

Could it really be simply that comics are disdained because even in the mind of the most confident and well adjusted adult there is the persistent voice of their first schoolteacher saying “no, leave the baby books alone – it’s high time you started with the big books now!”? It’s a terrifying thought, because if that’s the case, we’ve got a mountain to climb if we’re ever really going to change many minds.

And therein lies the danger of teaching comics in schools. I mean, from my point of view it’s brilliant. I’m having a whale of a time. But then I love teaching Shakespeare too, and let’s be honest – teaching that to my students hasn’t really raised the level of enthusiasm for the Bard of Avon in British society, now has it?

Still, let’s not despair. There are a few months of the course left to run, and who knows – I might yet turn out to be the engaging and inspirational teacher I always aspired to be.

What?

It could happen…





*I mean, it was really good when Kevin Smith was writing it, but let’s be realistic here...

**And indeed in the present, now I come to think about it. The future ain’t looking exactly turkey free either – and that wasn’t even a Christmas joke.

***Note to non-Brits (and indeed Brits with taste and better things to do in an evening – and there’s always some paint drying somewhere, so that must surely be most of you…). Hollyoaks is a TV soap featuring a cast of attractive but dull young people. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’d be much better if you allowed yourself to remain in that condition.

****Or is it “Super-Heroes”? I never can remember…

*****Note to litigious TV producers and obsessive fans. No, I’m not saying that Heroes is ripped off, and no, I’m not even saying that it’s shit, although I got bored and stopped watching half way through season one.****** No, it’s just that the thing that makes Heroes stand out on TV is it’s wholesale adoption of comics’ motifs. If it were just another comic it wouldn’t stand out all that much.

******Really. Life is just too short to keep track of all that stuff – and I’m saying this as somebody who didn’t miss an episode of LOST for two whole seasons. I wouldn’t have missed the third but they moved it onto a channel I can’t watch…