Books

I have an inherent bias...

I taught myself to read at the age of two. My parents and grandparents had thought I was just memorizing books until one day I asked where Vietnam was.

"Where did you hear about that?"

"It's on the newspaper, see?"

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At two, there's not a lot of reading material available, but comic books were $0.25 and considered disposable, so why not? Trip to the grocery store, throw the kid some comics.

From then on, my life has been surrounded by books. Now, some 54 years later... I have a "proper" library of "proper" books.

But since mom never threw out the comics, I have what I refer to as "the East Wing" of the library for comics and graphic novels:

So when it comes to reading, or perhaps you want to say capital "R" Reading, are comics not reading? What makes it NOT reading?

Is it merely because it's not just engaging the language centers of the brain, but also the visual cortex? Well that's an interesting subject, because scientists ran a study on sighted people who were blindfolded and then taught braille and found that reading braille also engages the visual cortex.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8606771/

Is reading braille not "Reading"? 🤔

If you sit down and read a play that was intended to be performed on stage by actors with props and music, is that not reading? 🤔

Is it because, as a medium, comics aren't considered serious art? Well, I'll grant you it's just over 100 years since the invention of the form and it's still evolving, but we've come a long way from what were once just collections of newspaper comic strips to something much more.

How it started (July 26, 1908):

How it's going (1980-1991):

I know, I know, unfair throwing down Maus since it won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Maybe it's because "Superhero fiction" or what's affectionately referred to as "Capes and Tights Books" are considered to be less serious?

There are any number of serious superhero books, the obvious ones people ALWAYS talk about, your "Dark Knight Returns", your "Watchmen", your "Sandman".

But there are any number of lesser known serious books such as Kurt Busiek's Astro City which is just a phenomenal read. No spoilers, go check it out.

Or also Starman by James Robinson, which deals with complex family relationdhips and personal legacy. Again, no spoilers, go read it.

Then there's Zot! by Scott McCloud. Not "Zot", "Zot!"

Zot! started in color and then as the publisher started running out of money, went on hiatus and came back as a black and white book dealing with a much more serious tone. The B&W issues are all collected and every page is a delight, but more to the point...

After Zot! completed, McCloud would go on to write and illustrate what is considered to be a defining work on the art of comics called "Understanding Comics":

All of this going a very long way to say... yes, I believe comics are reading. Further, I believe what you are doing right now is reading. 😉

Does it evoke an emotion? Did you learn something new? Was knowledge transmitted from the past into the present and now into the future?

Is that not the whole point?