Graphic Graphic

I've been trying to find a place to begin for a while now and I think I figured out why I'm so stuck. We refer to graphic novels as a whole, a unit of literature that goes together- but they do not. Where is my smooth transition from Maus to Rapunzel's Revenge? Maybe I could tease one out, but I don't want to sully the mark Maus made on my life with Shannon Hale's chopped and screwed fairy tale. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it and I absolutely see a need for it on my school's library shelves but that the graphic novel is not a genre but rather a format with consistent visual codes. It is a versatile format that lends itself to many different genres.

I am imagining Sumo's talk with Death in Into the Volcano written as prose. It wouldn't be as whimsical. (Yes, I think the way Death dangles from the walls and toys with Sumo is playful.) Reading about things shaking isn't the same as seeing the lines on the page blur. This tale of adventure and emotional growth is interwoven with surreal experience and a level of action that, were it equally described in narrative form, would require a different skill set that would arguably make it less accessible to more readers.

Rapunzel's Revenge achieves completely different goals. In this case the author employs the graphic novel format to make the book read more like a cartoon. It is a fairy tale, ever after. It is riddled with jokes and asides, and the Disney-style characters and bright colors give the story a lightness even at its darkest. The absence of color in Maus or Palomar stands in contrast to these books. It makes them feel more grave and lends the pages the historic significance of black and white photographs or the newspaper. The visual choices of the author are as important as the dialogue.

Consider also everything that Spiegelman told us by simply using animals. We know who comes from where at a glance and at one point we understand that his father is passing as a Pole wearing a pig mask- a visual metaphor!

I have used comics in my teaching curriculum for two years. Below is a text I relied on to write my comic unit. Kids adore reading both strips and graphic novels and are highly motivated to write their own. They are especially wonderful for language learners since the words are supported by visual representations. Now I want to include their use as teaching tools in reading. I imagine a lesson where students infer what happens in the gutter, then infer what happens between scenes or chapters. Students could look at Vladek wearing the mask of a pig and compare that to a metaphor in a line of poetry. If struggling readers who are adept graphic novel readers were aware of the skills they used to read visually it could be a powerful tool in helping

them transfer those habits to the written word.