Graphic Novels & Critical Thinking in the Winter Semester - Ron Samul, Thames Faculty

Joe Sacco, comic journalist

By Ron Samul -During the winter session, we will be working on the concept of critical thinking and expanding students' depth of thinking. This can be an important part of understanding the content in college courses. Over the winter, we will be using graphic novels and other art forms to define the ideas and perceptions of the artist and the writers. Part of our exploration will be considering nonfiction comics. Comics like Lynda Barry’s 100 Demons and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi comic journalism allows the reader to understand and view the narrator as the speaker of the comic as well as a character in the story. These perceptions of self add a dimension to the story when the narrative voice becomes character.

The class will also look at comic journalism and how it might work. Joe Sacco and his journalistic reporting through the manner of comic can be very insightful but also somewhat limiting based on his own drawings and sketches. The questions that the students will examine are based on how we see information and what is the best way to perceive it.

One of the cornerstones of nonfiction graphic novels is Art Spiegelman's Maus, a story about the Holocaust and the act of living in the shadow of those dark times. The narrative is a complex story that embeds a story in a story. Not only does it tell a complex and heart wrenching story, it also is based on anthropomorphic themes. Jews are mice, Nazis are cats, and American are portrayed at dogs. Not only do we define these masks based on religion and country affiliation, but some of the animals put on the masks of other animals to hide their identity in the text. This book is a complicated story that shows the horrors of the Holocaust and life after.

Lastly, we will be discussing other experimental comics and representations of the self. The course will examine comics and the creation of story based on these elements. We will also look at how to examine how they can draw their own visions of the self using Lynda Barry’s philosophical vision of how to render the past through pictures.

Part of the course will be challenging the students to think about some of these comics and graphic novels to understand their complexity and the stories they tell. Another element we will be teaching is critical thinking skills and how ideas can be turned into thesis statements, project seeds, or proposals for projects and new concepts. The tools of critical thinking only work when they become productive and instructive tools. The end result doesn't have to be a long term paper, but it has be realized as something that can be developed and expanded from thought process to explication in academic context.

Comics and graphic novels might seem like a passion for children, but in fact, graphic novels and the connection between image and word is an integral part of how students see the world. This mini-course will refine critical thinking in ways students never thought possible, using an art form that they already have some sure footing within.

Post Script:  I just presented on this topic at the Northeast Popular Culture Association Conference in October. My experience with teaching graphic novels as an art form, as a discourse, and as an emerging art form has been a rewarding and often challenging area of study. I am constantly impressed with the depth of thought that students put into their interpretations and understanding of the work.