Teaching with Comics: Empirical,

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Teaching with Comics
Empirical, Analytical, and
Professional Experiences
Edited by Robert Aman · Lars Wallner
Teaching with Comics
 Robert Aman · Lars Wallner
Editors

Teaching
with Comics
Empirical, Analytical, and Professional
Experiences
Editors
Robert Aman Lars Wallner
Behavioural Sciences and Learning Behavioural Sciences and Learning
Linköping University Linköping University
Linköping, Sweden Linköping, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-031-05193-7 ISBN 978-3-031-05194-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05194-4

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 Contents

Introduction: Teaching with Comics: Empirical,

Analytical, and Professional Experiences 1
Robert Aman and Lars Wallner

Comics as a Tool for Inquiry

Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art
Education 17
Clio Ding
The Superpowers of the Interrogative Mode 39
Noran Amin
Comics and Social-Emotional Laughter 63
Dona Pursall

Art Education
Comic Art Ed: Making Comics Is for Everyone! 87
Cathy G. Johnson

v
vi Contents

Cartooning in Educational Contexts: A Promising

Way to Promote Cross-Curricular Work with Children
and Adolescents 111
Ana Pedrazzini, Constanza Zinkgräf, Paola D’Adamo,
Lucía Bugallo, and Mariana Lozada
Loosening the Straight-Away of Thinking: Comic-Making
as Arts Education 131
Hannah Sackett

Language, Culture, and Communication

‘Multi Is More’: Towards Media-Awareness
and Multiliteracy in the Flemish Classroom Through
Italian Comics 153
Eva Van de Wiele, Michel De Dobbeleer, and Mara Santi
Astérix in Scottish National Education 171
Laurence Grove
Developing Disciplinary Literacy Practices with Comics:
Highlighting Students’ Strengths, Questionings,
and Knowings in School Spaces 185
Ashley K. Dallacqua, Dani Kachorsky, and Sara Kersten-Parrish
Developing Student Creativity Through the Exploration
and Design of Science Comics 205
Sylvia Pantaleo

Social Sciences
Using Comics to Teach East German History 231
Michael F. Scholz
#BlackFemaleIdentityConstructions: Inserting
Intersectionality and Blackness in Comics 255
Grace D. Gipson
 Contents vii

Materializing the Past: Teaching History Through Graphic

Novels 277
Zane Elward
Immigrant Voices and Empathy: A Guide
to Transformative Listening in Ruillier’s Les Mohamed 299
Kirby Childress
 Notes on Contributors

Aman Robert is Senior Associate Professor in Education at Linköping

University, Sweden. He primarily conducts research on ideology and the
politics of representation in comics.
Amin Noran is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of
English Language and Literature at Cairo University, Egypt.
Bugallo Lucía is Post-doctoral fellow at the Instituto Patagónico de
Estudios en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IPEHCS-CONICET),
National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET)—
National University of Comahue in Argentina.
Childress Kirby is a 4th year Ph.D. Candidate at The Ohio State
University, USA.
D’Adamo Paola is Researcher at the Instituto Patagónico en
Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IPEHCS), National Scientific and
Technical Research Council (CONICET)—National University of
Comahue in Argentina.

ix
x Notes on Contributors

Dallacqua Ashley K. is Assistant Professor in Literacy at The Univer-

sity of New Mexico, USA, where she focuses much of her research and
teaching around the medium of comics.
De Dobbeleer Michel holds a Ph.D. in East European Languages and
Cultures from Ghent University, Belgium.
Ding Clio is Educator and Comic Artist from Singapore with academic
background in B.A.(Hons) digital animation from Nanyang Technolog-
ical University School of Art Design and Media, and M.(Litt.) Comics &
Graphic Novels from University of Dundee [pending graduation at the
point of writing].
Elward Zane is Ph.D. Candidate at Indiana University, USA, where he
studies modern Italian history under Professors Carl Ipsen and Roberta
Pergher.
Gipson Grace D., Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department
of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University
(Richmond, VA), USA.
Grove Laurence is Professor of French and Text/Image Studies and
Director of the Stirling Maxwell Centre, University of Glasgow, UK.
Johnson Cathy G. is an award-winning Cartoonist and Educator.
She has been teaching comic book creation with kids since 2012, in
community centers, libraries, and schools across North America.
Kachorsky Dani is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M Univer-
sity—Corpus Christi, USA.
Kersten-Parrish Sara is Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at John
Carroll University, USA.
Lozada Mariana is Researcher specialized in cognitive processes in the
National University of Comahue (CRUB) and National Scientific and
Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Bariloche, Argentina.
 Notes on Contributors xi

Pantaleo Sylvia is Professor in Language & Literacies at the Faculty of

Education, University of Victoria, Canada.
Pedrazzini Ana is Researcher in Communication and Semiotic studies at
the Instituto Patagónico en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IPEHCS),
National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET)—
National University of Comahue in Argentina.
Pursall Dona is Ph.D. Candidate at Ghent University, Belgium, whose
Ph.D. research explores childhood and identity through the development
of British “funnies,” particularly in relation to times of socio-political
unrest.
Sackett Hannah is Researcher, Educator, and small press Cartoonist
based in Bath, UK.
Santi Mara is Associate Professor of Italian Literature at Ghent Univer-
sity, Belgium.
Scholz Michael F. is Professor of Modern History at Uppsala University,
Sweden.
Van de Wiele Eva is Ph.D. Student in comics at Ghent University,
Belgium.
Wallner Lars is Associate Professor at Linköping University, Sweden,
working in the field of Pedagogic Practices. His research explores the use
of comics, games, and popular fiction, mainly regarding education and
social interaction.
Zinkgräf Constanza is both Researcher and Lecturer in General
Psychology and Genetic Psychology at the Faculty of Educational
Sciences and Psychology, Comahue National University, Argentina.
 List of Figures

The Superpowers of the Interrogative Mode

Fig. 1 A mind map that gives examples of the elements of comics
that analyses could focus on and emphasizes their
interconnectedness 51
Fig. 2 Pablo Stanley’s comic strip delineation of John Lennon’s
song “Imagine” 53
Fig. 3 Pablo Stanley’s comic strip delineation of John Lennon’s
song “Imagine,” ctd 54

Comics and Social-Emotional Laughter

Fig. 1 “The last sandwich” Bunny vs. Monkey, book 4 (Smart,
2017) 67
Fig. 2 “Fighting forever” Bunny vs. Monkey, book 4 (Smart,
2017) 68
Fig. 3 Fatty from the Bash Street Kids (Freeman, 2021) 74
Fig. 4 Crying Walter in the Beano 1986 (Slipper, 2015) 76

xiii
xiv List of Figures

Comic Art Ed: Making Comics Is for Everyone!

Fig. 1 Example of a completed drawing from the Monster
Roundtable activity, by a student 91
Fig. 2 Example of original character “Pupacorn” and equipment
activity, by an elementary student 95
Fig. 3 Example of original character “Moe”, by a high school
student 97
Fig. 4 Example of a life comic, by a high school student 103
Fig. 5 Example of object quick-draw activity, by a student 105
Fig. 6 Example of a class comics anthology cover, created
collaboratively by four high school students 107
Fig. 7 Example of a completed original comic page, by a high
school student 108

Cartooning in Educational Contexts: A Promising Way

to Promote Cross-Curricular Work with Children and
Adolescents
Fig. 1 Sonia, 12 years old (we used pseudonyms for the authors’
names included in this chapter in order to preserve their
anonymity). Panel 1, Title: Gym. Panel 3,—Character
(Ch) 1: “She won’t be able to … she is a woman”. Panel
4, Ch2: “I did it … I thought someone was going to tell
me that I couldn’t do it” 121
Fig. 2 Andrés, 10 years old. Panel 1, Placard: I need food, Ch1:
“Hi, how are you?”, Ch2: “I am not well, I am very
hungry”. Panel 2, Ch1: “Ok, bye”, Ch2: “No, a coin
(please)!”, Ch1: “No!”. Panel 5, Ch1: “Here you are man”,
Ch2: “What is it?”. Panel 6, Ch1: “For you to buy food”,
Ch2: “Thank you very much” 122
Fig. 3 Yamila, 13 years old. Panel 2, Title: Bakery. Panels 3, 4
and 5, Placard: Croissants $20 122
Fig. 4 María, 10 years old. Ch1: “Your weekly pay”, Ch2:
“Thank you” 123
Fig. 5 Nicanor, 13 años. Label: Substitutes’ bench. Ch1: “We
never play”, Ch2: “Bench the black ones because they are
awful players” 123
 List of Figures xv

Loosening the Straight-Away of Thinking: Comic-Making

as Arts Education
Fig. 1 Drawing of ghosts by Spook Boy, Goth, Scarlet Mchaw,
and Albus 139
Fig. 2 The first page of “Ada” by Scarlet Mchaw 140
Fig. 3 Ghost family, planet family and pop-up planets made
by Scarlet Mchaw 141
Fig. 4 “The bird and the kid” by Nerd 707 143
Fig. 5 ‘Underwater-hopping-talking-fire-breathing trees’
by Scarlet and Nerd 707 145

‘Multi Is More’: Towards Media-Awareness and

Multiliteracy in the Flemish Classroom Through Italian
Comics
Fig. 1 This folder visualizes and explains the three workshops
organized at Sint-Lievenscollege in October 2020 157
Fig. 2 Example of a pupil’s creative reflection on the first
workshop 158
Fig. 3 Example of a pupil’s response to “draw a comic”. The
first panel reads: “Let’s kill the dragon!”, the sixth
celebrates the dragon flying away, while the final one holds
the pun, the dragons saying “That was yummy” echoing
the thought in panel 4 160
Fig. 4 A pupil’s version of one of Gipi’s characters in La stanza 162
Fig. 5 Image courtesy Cecilia Valagussa, VOS, 2016 164

Astérix in Scottish National Education

Fig. 1 Power point introduction to the works of Jean-Yves Ferri
and Didier Conrad’s work on Astérix 176
Fig. 2 Lesson activity that teaches glossary regarding the main
characters from Astérix 177
Fig. 3 Example of a lesson activity where the pupils are invited
to re-write a missing scene from the story 178
Fig. 4 Cover to freedom bound, a graphic novel dealing
with Scotland’s involvement in the slave trade 181
Fig. 5 Page from Joannes David’s duodecim specula (1610) 183
xvi List of Figures

Developing Student Creativity Through the Exploration

and Design of Science Comics
Fig. 1 Space Mission Page 1 217
Fig. 2 Space Mission Page 2 219
Fig. 3 Space Mission Page 3 220
Fig. 4 Space Mission Page 4 221
Fig. 5 Space Mission Page 5 222
Fig. 6 Space Mission Page 6 223

Using Comics to Teach East German History

Fig. 1 Der Schatz von Finkenrode, Für Dich 29/1980 241
Fig. 2 Das strahlende Geheimnis, Für Dich 7/1986 242
Fig. 3 ‘Kampfauftrag erfüllt, Genosse Kommandeur!’, Atze
2/1976 243
Fig. 4 Kims Geheimnis, Atze 7/1968 247
Fig. 5 Atze notiert, Atze 7/1968 248

Materializing the Past: Teaching History Through

Graphic Novels
Fig. 1 Igort in his apartment in Dnipropetrovsk, eastern Ukraine
(Igort, 2016, p. 6) 284
Fig. 2 A page from his section, “Bolshevik Murder Litany,”
constructed from a report by V. A. Balistsky (Igort, 2016,
p. 43) 285
Fig. 3 Here Kurt informs Ossietzky that he has confirmed
the rumors of German rearmament. After WWI, Germany
had been limited to a small military with no air force
(Lutes, 2018, p. 25) 286
Fig. 4 A page from the beginning of Serafima Andreyevna’s story
(Igort, 2016, p. 21) 288
Fig. 5 The conversation of the couple in the upper-right corner
is disrupted violently as a fight breaks out between Nazi
Brownshirts and members of the Communist Party (Lutes,
2018, p. 382) 289
 List of Figures xvii

Immigrant Voices and Empathy: A Guide to

Transformative Listening in Ruillier’s Les Mohamed
Fig. 1 Khémaïs, disoriented, arriving in France (All images in this
text used with permission: Les Mohamed, by Jérôme
Ruillier [Based on the book by Yamina Benguigui] ©
Éditions Sarbacane, Paris, 2019) 305
Fig. 2 Khémaïs experiencing isolation 306
Fig. 3 Ruillier, confronted with racism 314
Fig. 4 Ruillier, growing through conversation 317
Fig. 5 Ruillier, accepting correction and moving forward 319
Fig. 6 Ruillier, acknowledging transformation and cultural
humility 321
 List of Tables

Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art

Education
Table 1 A guide to formal analysis using the elements of comics 26
Table 2 A guide to comics criticism: formal analysis, contextual
analysis, and evaluation 31

The Superpowers of the Interrogative Mode

Table 1 A taxonomy of the available approaches of comics
criticism 41

#BlackFemaleIdentityConstructions: Inserting
Intersectionality and Blackness in Comics
Table 1 Listing of Black girlhood representations 263
Table 2 Listing of various experiences in Black womanhood 267
Table 3 A listing of Black female characters “Breaking Barriers” 270

xix
 Introduction: Teaching with Comics:
Empirical, Analytical, and Professional
Experiences
Robert Aman and Lars Wallner

When psychologist William Moulton Marston (1943, p. 36)—creator

of Wonder Woman—theorized the appeal of the comics medium among
readers in the journal American Scholar, he argued that the appeal is
woven into the very fabric of its nature. “The potency of the picture story
is not a matter of modern theory but of anciently established truths”,
Marston (1943, p. 37) writes, “[b]efore man thought in words he felt in
pictures”. For this very reason, Marston argued that comics have proved
effective in teaching school subjects. He takes the teaching of English
as an example. According to Marston, excerpts from the, at the time,
relatively new comic book hero Superman had been used successfully in

R. Aman (B) · L. Wallner

Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
e-mail: robert.aman@liu.se
L. Wallner
e-mail: lars.wallner@liu.se

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
R. Aman and L. Wallner (eds.), Teaching with Comics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05194-4_1
2 R. Aman and L. Wallner

teaching English at junior high schools in Massachusetts, USA. Enthusi-

astically, Marston describes how a special Superman workbook has been
compiled by “a progressive young English instructor”. He rounds off his
text by declaring that despite the fact that these developments around the
use of comics in the classroom are only in their early stages, it is impos-
sible to overlook the fact that the medium of comics hold “tremendous
possibilities indicated by initial experiments” as teaching tools.
Marston was far from alone within American academia to advocate
for the use of comics in education at this time. W. W. D. Sones (1944,
p. 232), a professor of education at University of Pittsburgh, reports that
between 1935 and 1944 comics “evoked more than a hundred critical
articles in educational and non-professional periodicals”. Sones (1944)
himself conducted a series of studies on using comic books in education,
concluding that comics are valuable teaching tools. His article is symp-
tomatic of an increased scholarly focus on comics. It was published in a
special issue of the Journal of Educational Sociology, which devoted the
entirety of an issue to the topic. Against this background, it seems fair
to suggest that Marston, Sones, as well as other scholars who sought to
design comics-supported curriculum for American schools (e.g. Dorrell
et al., 1995; Hutchinson, 1949), would have welcomed a publication
such as the one the reader holds in their hands. With a focus on primary
and secondary education, Teaching with comics is a collection that brings
together renowned scholars, authors, and artists, from different corners
of the map. With a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and interest in
different comics traditions, the authors exemplify and discuss the ways
in which comics can be used to teach different schools subjects.

Comics and Education

Comics are often described as a form of theatre with stationary actors.
The movement, however, has never been missing; each panel is a
summary of a time lapse, an implicit movement, as sequential art (Eisner,
1985). The definition(s) of comics, graphic novels, bandes dessinées,
graphica, or comix, is a messy and entangled scholarly affair (Groensteen,
2007; McCloud, 1994; Meskin, 2007), and not one for us to sort out
 Introduction: Teaching with Comics… 3

in this collection. The strive for, and struggle of, a unifying definition of
comics has perhaps become another reason why the academic field is still
struggling for legitimization (see, e.g., Meskin, 2007). This struggle for
academic and cultural legitimacy is also endemic of the way that comics
are still not unitarily accepted within the walls of classrooms.
The suitability and usefulness of comics in classrooms are dependent
on what can be learned from them. When discussing comics as a class-
room material, it needs to be acknowledged that recent scholarship has
granted the early decades of the comics industry considerable atten-
tion, discussing troubling representations of, predominately, ethnicity,
race, and gender. Examples include colonialist and white supremacist
representations (Boukari-Yabara, 2007; McKinney, 2011) and Ström-
berg’s (2001, 2012) mapping of both racist and anti-Semitic illustrations
in American, Belgian-French, and Swedish comics. A case in point is
Hergé’s Tintin au Congo—first published as an album in 1931 and
written when the Congo was under Belgian rule from 1876 to 1960—
which sings the praise of colonial presence in central Africa and contains
familiar racist stereotypes about black Africans.
In reference to the American comics industry, Singer (2002, p. 107)
similarly contends that predominantly superhero comics have a “long
history of excluding, trivializing, or ‘tokenizing’ minorities”. Other
scholars have confirmed this picture by identifying the genre of super-
heroes as a predominately white male-dominated power fantasy (e.g.
Gateward & Jennings, 2015; Singer, 2002) with a conservative leaning
(e.g. Curtis, 2015; DiPaolo, 2011). Furthermore, several researchers have
also directed the spotlight on sexism and misogyny within the genre as
part of gendered representations (e.g. Robinson, 2004; Stabile, 2009),
while others have more broadly focused on troubling illustrations of
gender differences, ability, and physical representations (Robbins, 2002).
Disturbing representations in comics partly sparked a backlash during
the 1950s as Wertham published his (in)famous Seduction of the Inno-
cent (1954). In the book, he targets descriptions of an explicit sexual
and violent nature found in comics of the period. Wertham goes so far
as to assert that the practice of reading comics leads to juvenile delin-
quency. Based on such a behaviourist interpretation, comics are viewed as
a negative pedagogical force that teaches children undesirable behaviours
4 R. Aman and L. Wallner

and leads them into the destructive life path of crime. In short: chil-
dren become and do what they read (Aman, 2020). In the USA, the
critique against the medium lead to the self-regulatory Comics Code
authority. Not limited to an American context, similar debates around
comics’ possible negative impact on young readers occurred in various
corners of the world: France (Crépin 2001), South Korea (Lent, 1999),
Australia (Osbrone 1999), and Mexico (Rubenstein, 1998).
At the same time, important work has recently been done on the ways
in which comics can challenge worldviews and offer alternatives, some-
thing which offers educationalists interesting materials for classroom
work. Some researchers identify a shift in the American comics industry
during the 1960s as writers increasingly started to see themselves as social
critics (Moore, 2003). This includes a shift in content from oblique
narrative metaphors towards direct representation of racism, sexism, and
class politics; social dimensions on both an individual and structural
level in American society that previously had been overlooked in super-
hero comics (Costello, 2009; Moore, 2003). A similar phenomenon on
the intersection between comics and political and societal developments
has been identified in, for example, Swedish comics. Recent scholar-
ship highlights the increase of titles during the 1970s and 1980s filled
with feminist (Nordenstam, 2014) and antiracist messages (Aman, 2016,
2018).
Other studies, on more contemporary comics from different parts of
the world, have centred on, among other aspects, working-class perspec-
tives in comics drawing parallels between certain comics with a stated
working-class perspective and working-class literature (Nilsson, 2019),
comics indulged with queer feminist imaginations (D’Agostino, 2018),
and the use of irony in black comics (Wanzo, 2015) and satire in feminist
comics (Jönsson, 2014; Lindberg, 2014). As an example of classroom
work with comics, Letizia (2020) writes on comics as tools for studying
and discussing questions around citizenship. Thus, there is ample supply
of comics that challenge existing societal norms and perspectives on how
to utilize these comics.
Meanwhile, there is a limited, and highly fragmented, body of scholar-
ship on the use of comics and graphic novels as a material for educational
 Introduction: Teaching with Comics… 5

practice (Tilley & Weiner, 2017; Wallner & Eriksson Barajas, 2020).
Recent studies on comics as school materials show their versatility and
usefulness in terms of, for instance, enhancing literacy (Wallner, 2017),
foreign language learning (Graham, 2011), the teaching of sciences
(Cheesman, 2006), and engaging in gender discussions (Dallacqua &
Low, 2019). The use of visual literature enables teachers to engage
students of different levels of language skill and opens for engagement
with social issues textually and visually (Wallner, 2017). Thus, comics
are a versatile medium, motivating youths to read and learn but also to
engage in social issues.
The existing research also predominately takes a literary perspective on
analysing the comics themselves, their characteristics, and how they can
be potentially useful for teaching, whereas much of the existing classroom
research with comics is done from a reading or literacy perspective (e.g.
Hammond, 2009; Helsby, 1999; see also Wallner, 2017). Other research
has shown the motivating power of using comics in order to attract
young people to reading (Laycock, 2007; Norton, 2003), which shows
only a few of the strengths of using these materials in classrooms. Just as
education, comics studies is a diverse, interdisciplinary field, consisting
of multiple intersecting branches of academic perspectives, and we think
that this edited collection reflects that. In their book, With Great Power
Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics (2020), Kirtley,
Garcia, and Carlson write that they “see a distinct need to promote
discourse around comics in education that moves across grade levels, with
theory and scholarship helping to legitimize teaching graphic narratives
K-12, and K-12 instructors inspiring academics to explore new areas for
research” (Kirtley et al., 2020, p. 247). This volume addresses some of
that need, in an attempt to further comics research taking place in, or
relevant to, K-12 classrooms. Today, comics are increasingly recognized
and used in classrooms around the world. A reason for this is the breadth
of comics today and the possibility of finding comic books that address
most topics, questions, and themes.
6 R. Aman and L. Wallner

Outline of the Book

With a focus on primary and secondary education, this edited collec-
tion brings together renowned scholars and professionals from around
the world. With a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and interest in
different comics traditions, the authors discuss the ways in which comics
can be used to teach different schools subjects. The various chapters are
not limited to learning about comics but address the ways in which a
subject can be learned with and through comics. The contributors are
researchers, teachers, librarians, comics artists, and creators with vast
experience of reading, making, and using comics in the classroom. The
book is divided into four major sections: Comics as a Tool for Inquiry, Art
Education, Language, Culture, and Communication, and Social Sciences.
The chapters included in the first section, Comics as a Tool for Inquiry,
focus on methodological interrogations and on how to help pupils read
comics with a focus on interpretation, analysis, and inquiry. To open
the discussion, Clio Ding examines comics in relation to a larger discus-
sion around art and reflects upon common attitudes towards the role of
comics in the academic realm and art classroom. The argument advanced
is that comics should be taught as a form of art both in and outside
tertiary levels of education, using critical evaluation frameworks and
pedagogies based on art criticism. This in turn allows for an analysis and
critique of comics alongside fine art and other visual cultures as a way to
remove the hierarchies between the various forms.
In Chapter 2, Noran Amin takes a point of departure in personal
experiences in the teaching of comics. A conclusion drawn is on the
importance of leading students to understand the interplay between
the verbal and the visual in comics, and the interdisciplinarity of the
medium. In order to help teachers to achieve this, Amin introduces
an analytical tool called “The Interrogative mode” that brings together
various forms of comics criticism and works as a helpful lens to analyse
comics. The chapter also presents a sample syllabus with different comics
(different in format, genre, style, and creators’ genders) and demonstrates
how this analytical tool can serve specific teaching purposes.
In Chapter 3, Dona Pursall draws attention to the humorous side of
comics. According to Pursall, the comedic side of comics is connected to
 Introduction: Teaching with Comics… 7

conflict and identity, as funny moments draw attention to boundaries of

taste, culture, or other markers of distinction. Bringing together humour
research, comics studies, and education, Pursall argues that classroom
discussions centred on humour in comics invite teachers and pupils alike
to think about themselves and their own boundaries, and about those of
others.
The second section includes chapters that discuss comics as part of Art
Education with a focus on literacy, social issues, and empowerment, both
in reading and making comics. In Chapter 4, Cathy G. Johnson makes a
direct contribution to art education with a concrete lesson plan for high
school or secondary studies. According to Johnson, a lesson on comics
can be developed through five different pedagogical values: teamwork,
ideation, literacy, self-actualization, and fun. These pedagogical values
reveal themselves, Johnson stresses, in how comics create opportunities
for group activities in a relaxed manner, empower students to create who
may be hesitant in a traditional arts classroom, and help grow literacy
skills by engaging students with innovative approaches to reading and
writing.
In Chapter 5, Ana Pedrazzini, Constanza Zinkgräf, Paola D’Adamo,
and Mariana Lozada discuss results from two workshops on comics for
primary students in Argentina, in which the participants were asked to
produce a comic related to social inequalities. The thirty-three students
produced panels filled with imaginary and experiential situations that
addressed injustices related to gender, ethnicity, and social class among
others. According to the researchers, this evidenced a committed or a
committed-playful motivation. In conclusion, the group of researchers
argue for viewing the use of cartooning in schools as a tool to foster
students’ agency, multimodal communication, and civic engagement to
be employed in social sciences, language, and visual arts.
In the final chapter of this section, Hannah Sackett takes a different
approach to the teaching of comics within the field of arts education.
Instead of a focus on comic-making as a route to the development
of personal and artistic skills, Sackett asks what happens when comic-
making is presented as a form of open-ended art practice, without set
objectives or known outcomes. By making use of pedagogical ideas
from cartoonist Lynda Barry and by illustrator Martha Newbigging, the
8 R. Aman and L. Wallner

chapter advocates for an alternative approach to making comics in the

classroom.
The third section focuses on comics as teaching tools for Language,
Culture, and Communication, addressing topics such as the teaching of
foreign languages through comics, reading comprehension, and critical
thinking. In Chapter 7, Eva Van de Wiele, Michel De Dobbeleer, and
Mara Santi discuss the use of comics in foreign language learning. Based
on three workshops on Italian comics within the aesthetics lessons for
sixteen-year-olds in a Belgian school, the chapter explores how the pupils’
readings grapple with cultural, social, and economics topics. In addition
to their attention to the form, content, and language of the comics. The
chapter closes off by arguing for the usefulness of comics in learning
about other cultures as part of different school subjects.
In Chapter 8, Laurence Grove tells the interesting story of how Albert
Uderzo’s diminutive Gallic hero Asterix and his friend Obelix became
part of the Scottish curriculum. This means that children in Scottish
classrooms who study French follow the adventures of Asterix. The
chapter provides an overview of the project, before asking how other
activities might similarly raise public awareness of the important cultural
role of comics.
In the next chapter, Ashley K. Dallacqua, Dani Kachorsky, and Sara
Kersten Parrish bring together results from studies of three different
classrooms as they explore the ways in which comics could be used to
challenge school norms and support literacy practices. The authors argue
that comics can function as supportive texts with the potential to increase
reading comprehension and content knowledge as part of the regular
curricula.
In the final chapter as part of this strand, Sylvia Pantaleo discusses
the ways in which comics can foster creativity and critical thinking.
Based on data from a classroom-based study where elementary students
explore and design their own science comics, Pantaleo demonstrates how
intentionally designed pedagogy, and student opportunities to critically
explore and create with the medium of comics, can foster creativity in
learners.
The fourth and final section, with a focus on Social Sciences, includes
chapters dealing with how comics can be used to combat racism, engage
 Introduction: Teaching with Comics… 9

in source criticism, and work with visual empathy. In Chapter 11,

Michael F. Scholz explores the use of comics in studying and teaching
the history of East Germany as part of German history during the Cold
War. In making use of comics published during the period from after
World War II and up to the fall of the Berlin wall, Scholz shows how to
motivate with comics and how comics can be used to stimulate critical
thinking and to practise historical source criticism.
In Chapter 12, Grace D. Gipson argues for the importance to consider
how comics used in education deals with questions around race and
gender. To facilitate such discussion, Gipson addresses the ways in which
a syllabus that centres on blackness and intersectionality can be devel-
oped with a particular focus on black female voices and their respective
character storylines. This is also done by way of so-called hashtag syllabi
and accompanying textual analysis, which, Gipson proposes, allows the
opportunity to create an ongoing archive, while simultaneously making
comics more accessible, discoverable, and open for engagement.
In Chapter 13, Zane Elward reflects on the medium in relation to
history pedagogy as he argues that comics can materialize the past,
allowing students to grapple with the complexities of history. Drawing
on the examples of two graphic novels, Berlin by Jason Lutes and The
Ukrainian Notebooks, by Igor, Elward argues that these comics invite
readers to a world they can inhabit. This in turn offers great possibilities
for deepening students’ understanding of the past and eliciting a connec-
tion to previous time periods, fostering empathy for the experiences and
perspectives of others.
Lastly, Kirby Childress puts the spotlight on migration and refugees
in contemporary Europe, with a focus on Jérôme Ruillier’s comic Les
Mohamed from 2011, which zooms in on North African immigrants
who arrived in France during the 1960s as work force labour in various
factories. Central to the themes of these stories is the double iden-
tity immigrants feel, not belonging fully to their new or their home
countries. Childress makes the argument that Les Mohamed can be
understood as an example of “visual empathy”, where the illustrations of
life stories enable classroom discussions on racism and on how to develop
understanding for others.
10 R. Aman and L. Wallner

In sum, in approaching these subjects from different angles, the chap-

ters that make up this edited collection aim to spark insight and foster
imaginative teaching and learning by engaging with comics and graphic
novels in the classroom. Regardless of school system or subject, we hope
that there is something useful for everyone in these chapters.

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Comics as a Tool for Inquiry
Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics
in Art Education
Clio Ding

The Absence of Comics in Art Classrooms

The educational potential of comics is becoming increasingly recog-
nized in classrooms (Cleaver, 2008). Arguments for using comics in
the classroom most often focus on its appeal to young audiences,
and its presumed ability to enhance student motivation and engage-
ment with a particular topic (Toh et al., 2017). Comics are adopted
for a wide range of pedagogical outcomes across different subjects: in
language and literature classrooms, comics are used as a multimodal
text to encourage reading and improve literacy; in humanities subjects,
comics can be contextualized as artefacts with which social–historical
themes and issues are examined; in STEM lessons, comics can illus-
trate abstract and difficult concepts to enhance students’ understanding

C. Ding (B)
Anglo-Chinese Junior College, Dover, Singapore
e-mail: clio_ding@acjc.edu.sg

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 17

Switzerland AG 2022
R. Aman and L. Wallner (eds.), Teaching with Comics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05194-4_2
18 C. Ding

(Cleaver, 2008; Rhoades et al, 2015; Subramaniam, 2016). Paradoxi-

cally, however, teaching comics in art classrooms, particularly for older
students in secondary schools and pre-university institutions, poses its
own sets of challenges. Art educators might face an awkward conundrum
when it comes to positioning comics alongside other “serious” art forms
such as paintings, sculptures, installations, performance art, architecture,
film, and even fashion, leading to a reluctance in accepting comics as a
highly technical and sophisticated form of expression suitable for older
students. The reason behind the neglect of comics in the fine art class-
room is manifold: The historical rift between high and low culture, the
exclusion of the latter from the grand narratives of art history, the prob-
lematic definitions offered by comic scholars further alienating comics
from art, the lack of exposure and quality canonical works that makes
comics intimidating to fine art teachers, and the limitations of syllabus,
curriculum times, and assessment criteria.
Deeply entrenched perceptions of what constitutes high-art versus
low-culture permeate the artistic discourse especially after the rise of
modern art, which was vehemently championed by various critiques
and institutions to distinguish the noble destiny of fine art from the
banal domain of mass culture. Educator John Dewey (1958) noted that
“when an art product once attains classic status, it somehow becomes
isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into
being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life-
experience” (p. 3). Because of its function as an accessible mass medium
for ordinary people, in the process of elevating high art from mass
culture, comics were often deemed to exemplify the antithesis of the
former—crude entertainment “mass produced for the lowest-common-
denominator audience” (Sabin, 1996, p. 8). A year after the debut of
Superman in Action Comics #1, art critic Clement Greenberg, a cham-
pion of American Expressionism coined the term “Kitsch” to decry
mass-produced commercial art as ersatz, artificial culture, and the “art of
the exploited ignorant” which is inferior to that of genuine culture and
avant-garde art (1939/1989, p. 10). At the height of Abstract Expres-
sionism, Frederic Wertham published in the infamous Seduction of the
Innocents (1954), condemning comics as an amoral product that corrupts
the young. The immediacy and immersive capabilities of the comic form
 Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education 19

to arouse pleasurable emotion was deemed a seductive and sinister trait, a

form of Lacanian “phallic jouissance” that allows too much “transgressive
indulgence” (Contreras-Koterbay, 2008, p. 91). While contemporary art
has been challenging the division between high and low art, art curricu-
lums in secondary and pre-university levels are still somewhat lagging
behind in reconciling applied arts and popular culture with the realm of
“proper” fine art. Even today, the continued disdain for comics by high
culture is noted by Bart Beaty in Comics versus Art (2012):

…even in these postmodern times… in which the distinction between

high and low culture is often assumed to have been eroded, outmoded
biases continue to exist in the shaping of how we understand culture
broadly. (p. 7)

Attempts by comics scholars to define comics may not have helped in

aligning its status as a form of art either. Comics have more or less
been defined as sequentially juxtaposed images by a number of scholars
such as David Kunzle, Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, and Hayman &
Pratt, with varied opinions on details such as whether or not comics
must be narrative, have moral messages, texts, speech balloons, or be
mass produced (Meskin, 2007). In this aspect, the varied definitions of
comics parallel the changing definition of art. However, most attempts
at defining comics seek to isolate it from other art forms, potentially
tangentializing comics from the wider discourse of art. Meskin, in
Defining Comics (2007), criticized the shortcomings of other scholar’s
attempts to provide a definition that “seems to offer a way to estab-
lish the art status of comics” (p. 376). Similarly, Thierry Groensteen
(2006, as cited in Beaty, 2012) outlined five “symbolic handicaps” of
comic’s devaluation as art, one of which being comic’s indifference to the
development of modern and contemporary art (p. 23). These numerous
attempts by comics scholars to define the position of comics in relation
to art reveals both a desire for the former to be recognized by the wider
art world by attempting to participate in its politics, and, on the other
hand, a tendency to break free from the boundaries of institutional art
by focusing on the uniqueness and rebellious nature of comics. Addi-
tionally, due to its hybridity of images and texts, comics can also be
20 C. Ding

classified as both a form of literature as well as a form of art (Groen-

steen, 2013). Despite its “preponderance of images over texts” (Kunzle,
1973, as cited in Meskin, 2007, p. 369), its existence within the liminal
spaces of literary and artistic disciplines further confounds classifications.
Institutions have a key role to play in determining whether a cultural
object is worthy of serious studies and contemplation under a partic-
ular discipline, rather than purely being used as a teaching aid. The
contentious cultural status of comics is closely tied to the actions of
art institutions as they continuously try to redefine what art is and
what good art should be. According to art historian and educator Terry
Barrett (2011), most theoretical definitions of art fall into two categories:
honorific and classificatory. Honorific definitions of art seek characteris-
tics that qualify something as worthy of the honour of being labelled
as art, while classificatory simply answers the questions of whether the
object is or is not art, rather than whether it is good. Major honorific
theories include Realism, Expressionism/Cognitivism, and Formalism,
whereas classificatory theory includes Institutionalism (Barrett, 2011).
The constantly evolving theoretical definitions have had a profound
impact on the legitimization and evaluation of cultural objects as works
of art, by expanding the definitions of art. Institutionalism in particular,
recognizes the pivotal role and responsibilities of cultural institutions,
known as the art world , in canonizing and circulating the knowledge of
art. The art world consists of a network of markets, institutions, and
stakeholders, such as artists, critiques, gallery owners, museums, and
patrons (Becker, 1982; Danto, 1964; Dickie, 1975). Institutionalism
is ground-breaking because it argues that the recognition of a cultural
object as art depends solely on the preferences of powerful authori-
ties rather than the object’s intrinsic qualities. This explains the curious
phenomenon where proto-comics such as William Hogarth’s engravings
and erotic Shunga were considered to be art (because they were rare,
collected and valued by museums) where commercial comics are not
(because most art museums do not value and collect comics in mass
circulation).
Beaty (2012) offered an institutional definition of comics, arguing that
“Comics are objects recognized by the comics world as comics” (p. 37).
The major players of the comics world consist of publishers, distributors,
 Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education 21

bookstores, and online platforms, who partake in the commercial aspects

of manufacturing, marketing, and distributing a product to consumers,
and also the circle of fans, critics, and media channels whose purchasing
power and preferences dictate market trends and influence publisher’s
decisions. Groensteen (2013) argues that the art world and the comics
world differ in terms of how they are produced, circulated, who their
audiences are and how they are valued. In other words, the art worlds and
the comics worlds do not overlap as they operate in different consumer
markets. This segregation of cultural institutions further removed comics
from the inclusion in art institutions, and the academic discussion of
comics is often undertaken by various university departments other than
art departments in tertiary education.
Art schools and universities have been the gatekeepers of “artistic stan-
dards”, where artists are trained, and art critics evaluate and legitimize the
former. Comics, however, do not enjoy a history and tradition of such
a system of technical training and academic evaluation. While fine art
students have opportunities to engage in both theoretical and practical
components of art criticism and art making, the teaching and learning of
comics are divided along the lines of criticism versus production. In most
art schools, comics are taught from a production point of view, enabling
students to develop technical skills necessary for the industry. The theo-
retical component, comics studies, is a relatively new academic discipline.
Beaty (2012) noted that rather than the art history department, “the
institutionalization of comics in the academy has most often come from
departments on the margins: American studies, popular culture studies,
communication studies, cultural studies and English Literature” (p. 18).
The examination of comics as artefacts by various academic disciplines,
each through their respective lenses and methodologies resulted in the
multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of critical discourses in
comics research. Yet these disciplines do not place as much emphasis on
the complexity of visual form as the visual arts, which is made redundant
when images are referred to as texts (Freedman, 2019).
There are attempts to unite the commercially oriented sphere of
production with the academically oriented sphere of criticism. The
University of Dundee offers two tracks of postgraduate studies in comics,
the Master of Letters (MLitt) course by the School of Humanities and
22 C. Ding

the Master of Design (MDes) by Duncan of Jordanstone College of

Art & Design. On top of compulsory modules, students can choose
any modules from both tracks, incorporate creative responses in critical
essays, or to make an entire thesis into a comic, giving students freedom
and access to unite theoretical aspects of criticism and technical aspects
of production (Murray, 2019). Currently, however, most art history and
criticism classes still revolve around traditionally defined fine art found
in galleries, museums, and public spaces. Normalizing the incorporation
of comics into the greater discourse of art criticism should begin not just
in tertiary levels, but early in primary, secondary and pre-university art
classrooms.
How should comics be used differently in art classrooms as compared
to other learning spaces? In contrasting subjects such as science, mathe-
matics, and economics, comics are primarily used to illustrate complex
concepts in ways that appeal to young students while also enhancing
their memories of said concepts (Toh et al., 2017). In proximal subjects
such as in language, literature, and humanities, the process of crit-
ical analysis bears some similarity to the process of art criticism: the
visuals serve as multimodal texts where students participate actively in
the meaning-making process, teasing out thematic issues relevant to the
subjects while offering an alternative to traditional modes of top-down
instruction (Rhoades et al., 2015). On the contrary, analyzing comics
in the art classroom goes beyond interpretation of themes: By placing
more emphasis on formal analysis, art students need to be able to eval-
uate the effectiveness of the form in communicating its ideas. This sets
art criticism apart from analysis centred around the same work in other
subjects or disciplines. For example, students discussing Shaun Tan’s
graphic novel The Arrival (2006) in a social studies class may focus on
the themes of immigration and displacement, whereas in art criticism,
a significant portion of time should be spent analyzing the effects of
colours and panel layouts, and their functions in expressing said themes.
Additionally, students can compare The Arrival with a similar work such
as Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2007), to evaluate which work makes
a more effective social commentary, or to compare The Arrival with a
different art form dealing with similar themes, such as Dorothea Lange’s
 Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education 23

photographic portrait of Migrant Mother (1936). In other words, art crit-

icism not only asks “what does it say?”, but also “what does it look like?”,
“why does it look like this?”, “what is the significance of this form?”, as
well as “how does it compare to other similar types of things?”.
Criticism and production should work in tandem in the art classroom;
being able to discern what makes an artwork’s form effective in commu-
nicating ideas is a crucial knowledge in helping students to make artistic
decisions when it comes to making art. While making comics can be used
in many subjects as an alternative assessment, the technical and aesthetic
demand of the craft needs to be taught in the art classroom. Given
the increasing popularity of comics in many subject disciplines, comics
criticism and comics production should become an integral part of art
curriculums to allow seamless integration between technical/theoretical
knowledge and cross-disciplinary applications.

Analyzing Comics Using Art Criticism

Approaches
Dewey’s Art as Experience is an influential text in developing educational
models for art criticism. It is applicable to a wide variety of art forms,
including comics. Dewey divides aesthetic judgement into two stages—
the discriminating phase and the unifying phase, also known as analysis
and synthesis respectively (1958, p. 313). Analysis is the dismantling
and decoding of the parts from the whole to expose the inner workings.
Synthesis is the deriving of the critic’s creative response and insights. A
model for practical art criticism developed by Edmund Burke Feldman
in 1994 centred around the four stages of Description, Analysis, Inter-
pretation and Evaluation. Feldman’s approach echoes that of Dewey’s
in terms of analysis and synthesis, while providing more scaffolding to
divide analysis into describing and analyzing, and synthesis into interpre-
tation and evaluation (Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board,
2019). While seemingly straightforward, each step involves discipline-
specific concepts, language, and theory. Feldman’s approach is widely
adopted in schools to help beginner art students to scaffold their analysis
of artworks, and can be extremely useful for most art teachers who are
24 C. Ding

familiar with this framework to start a discussion on comics. Most art

teachers are familiar with the four steps involved in Feldman’s approach,
which is briefly outlined below:

1. Description is the first stage to criticism. It involves slowing down,

looking closely, and taking note of and listing out what is factu-
ally visible, including details about a work’s subject matter and
formal properties—answering questions such as what is depicted,
what colours are used and how space is distributed.
2. Analysis is the deconstruction of the various Elements of Art used
in the work—Lines, Shapes, Forms, Values, Colour and Space, and
the explanation of how they are assembled and manipulated by the
artists to achieve visual effects, usually through Principles of Design—
Balance, Contrast, Emphasis, Rhythm and Harmony.
3. Interpretation is to figure out the meaning and purpose behind
the work by assessing the artist’s intention, extrapolating schematic
patterns, symbolism, and thematic concerns. Barrett (2002) proposed
a formula to interpretation: Subject matter + Medium + Form +
Context = Meaning. Meaning here is not definitive and prescribed
by the artist, but akin to making sense of the work, inclusive of any
subtext, in relation to the viewer’s own experiences and the world
at large. Different audiences may derive multiple interpretations of
the same work, as long as the interpretations are supported by both
formal and contextual evidence. Formal evidence is derived from
previous stages of description and analysis, and contextual evidence
requires additional knowledge outside of the work such as the artist’s
biography and associated movements.
4. The ultimate goal of criticism is to make a judgement, or an evalua-
tion of the work, not only of its technical competency and aesthetic
quality but also of its significance within the larger social context.
This calls for in-depth knowledge in art history and theory. Evalua-
tion aims to allow students to develop appreciation for the work, and
also formulate an original opinion using critical thinking skills.

Without relevant backgrounds in comics studies or having read a variety

of comics, art teachers trained in fine arts and art history may find
 Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education 25

comics somewhat alien, therefore facing some degree of challenge when

performing comics criticism. Like any other media and art forms, comics
have their own medium-specific visual elements and technical vocab-
ularies. Analytical frameworks and terminology commonly used in the
art classroom such as Elements of Art and Principles of Design may be
sufficient in brief analysis of single images, but inadequate in addressing
the visual nuances and specificities of the sequential art form. Much like
the elements of film are specific to the technology of the film media,
there are also distinctive Elements of Comics that describe their specific
features, albeit this title is not uniformly adopted. Similar terms may
include anatomy of comics, languages of comics, parts of a comic, etc.
Given the multi-disciplinary approaches to comics criticism at university
levels, the plethora of approaches and discipline-specific languages may
also bring confusion to the art classroom. Therefore, a clear framework or
guideline to analyzing comics through the lens of art criticism is needed
for teachers of secondary and tertiary art classes to confidently discuss
comics with students without having to venture into the fields of semi-
ology, psychoanalysis, literary analysis, or critical theories. The following
section proposes a framework to help art teachers to incorporate comic
specific elements and vocabularies within art criticism frameworks.

Supporting Formal Analysis Using Elements

of Comics:
Adapted from elements of art and principles of design, equipping
students with the vocabularies of elements of comics will help them
to identify and describe their unique features. The elements of art are
generally understood to be Line, Shape, Form, Colour, Value, Texture, and
Space. Some key elements specific to comics are Panels, Gutters, Balloons,
Effects, Texts, Layout, and Format. Table 1 lists the seven elements of
comics, which are consolidated based on the formalist approaches by
scholars such as McCloud, Eisner, and Groensteen. The right side of the
table contains questions to guide students in taking closer observations
of how the artist has manipulated these elements to achieve a certain
Table 1 A guide to formal analysis using the elements of comics
26

The
seven
elements Questions to guide formal analysis
of Make close observations of how each element is manipulated
comics What effect does it generate?
C. Ding

Panels – How does the panel’s shape, dimension, location, borders relate to the content of the panel?
– Are the main subjects within each panel centralized or pushed to the side?
– What type of framing and perspectives are adopted for each panel?
– What types of panel transitions are used? (Moment to Moment, Action to Action, Aspect to Aspect,
Subject to Subject, Scene to Scene, Symbolic, Non-sequitur)
Gutters – What is the colour of the gutters?
– Are the gutter sizes consistent or varied?
– Is there a margin around the page or is there frequent use of crop and bleed?
Balloon – How does the size, shape, position, and colour of speech, thought and caption balloons imply the
speaker’s tone and mood?
Effects – Are there frequent use of zoom lines, speed lines, onomatopoeia, impact star, emanata and aura to
depict mood?
Texts – Are there any dialogues, captions, sound effects?
– How does the font size, typeface, density, and distribution of the text affect the tone of the page and
ease of reading?
Layout – How many panels are in one page and how are the panels arranged?
– Are they arranged orderly and systematically like a grid, or overlapping expressively in a flamboyant
manner?
– Do you see symmetrical and asymmetrical balance in the layout and compositions of the page? How does
that affect the aesthetics of the page?
– How does layout affect pacing? Does the arrangement slow down or speed up reading?—Would you say
this is a compressed or decompressed narrative?
Format – What platform is the work optimized for: a comic book, zine, web comic, mobile comic?
– What is the size, weight, binding, and finishing if it is a physical material?
– How many pages are there? Is it meant to be a one-shot or part of a series?
– How does format determine other elements such as layout and colours?
 Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education 27

intended effect. Just like the precise lists of elements of art and princi-
ples of design vary slightly across sources, this list provides a guideline
for description and analysis, and is not meant to be exhaustive.
Apart from the seven elements of comics, the critic can certainly
examine the use of common elements of art and principles of design
such as colours, line, and texture. As with any artwork, the observation
and description of a comic should proceed from the whole to its parts,
from large to small. Special attention needs to be paid first and foremost
to its format: whether it is intended to be read as a newspaper comic
strip, a bound comic book, a webcomic optimized for a mobile device,
or a digital comic optimized for a larger screen, as the format and its
limitations such as page number and printing costs can dictate formal
elements such as the use of colour and the density of panels.
In addition to analyzing a single work, formal analysis can also be
comparative, where one work is contrasted with another to demon-
strate an awareness of the aesthetic nuances between different artists
and art styles. A familiar example would be to compare the drawing
style and panel layout between The Arrival and Persepolis. While both
works are monochrome, The former uses a more realistic, or natural-
istic style rendered exquisitely with pencils, with emphasis on tonal
variations, textures, and composition, as compared to the latter which
uses a more abstract and decorative approach where characters and
backgrounds are simplified and flattened into lines and shapes of solid
black or white. The Arrival also presents more moment-to-moment and
action-to-action panel transitions as compared to Persepolis which uses a
lot more scene-to-scene and symbolic transitions. By adopting a realistic
style and a panel transition that slows down time, The Arrival brings the
reader into a hyper-realistic space for a first-hand experience seemingly
unmediated by the artist’s presence, whereas Persepolis piece together
fragmented symbolic images complemented with first-person narration
filtered through the author’s personal memory and perspective, offering
viewers glimpses of her own reality.
28 C. Ding

Making Contextual Analysis Using Terry

Barrett’s Formula
Barrett’s (2002) formula for making sense of art: Subject matter +
Medium + Form + Context = Meaning is a useful formula to supple-
ment Feldman’s approach. Deriving the Meaning corresponds to the
Interpretation stage of Feldman’s approach, which is a cumulative process
stopping just before the Evaluation stage. It can be applied onto a
variety of art forms, including comics, to deepen interpretation and build
towards the evaluation stage.
As compared to fine art, interpretation of comics seems to be less
ambiguous because clarity of expression is a priority in this art form
(Eisner, 2008, p. 39). However, as comics share similarity with time-
based media such as film and performance art where narratives unfold
overtime, therefore Subject matter may be multi-faceted, involving genre,
story, plot, setting, characters, thematic concerns, and sub-themes. The
interpretation of a comic would need to be supported by visual and
contextual evidence. For example, how setting is communicated by the
design style of the environment, how mood and tone are communicated
via the choice of colours, how stories unfold within and across the pages,
how characters’ emotions and personalities are expressed through design,
body languages, and facial expressions, and if there are recurring motifs
symbolic and suggestive of particular genres and themes.
Medium may seem obvious too, but it is also worth noting how the
author’s choice of using comics and not other forms of expression might
have been a deliberate choice, given that medium itself can subtly influ-
ence the perception of meaning (McLuhan, 2001). Broadly speaking, the
status of comics as a marginalized art form already brings to mind certain
stereotypical associations of its form and content. However, within the
spectrum of the comics medium, there are further differences in terms
of types, genres, and formats, which influences how it is classified and
distributed, who the work is positioned towards, and how it may be
perceived by the public: Editorial decisions from publishers may also
determine the content and form; Classification and formats of the book
may affect shelving when it comes to how these books are displayed on
 Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education 29

bookshelves of libraries, bookstores, and even online stores; Associating

a genre with a particular demography may bring to mind preconceived
ideas about the type of content and form that appeals to the target group,
influencing the interpretation and evaluation of the work. To illus-
trate this point, The Arrival is published by a children’s book publisher
whereas Persepolis is published as a graphic novel, both of which are
perceived very differently from commercial comic books and manga. The
Arrival stands out from the usual expectations of children’s books while
Persepolis falls within the genre of an indie autobiography, but both of
them are distinguished from and elevated above the mainstream.
Apart from decoding the subject matter and examining the influ-
ence of the medium, comic interpretation needs to be supported by
Context, which can include where and when the comics were made,
who the target audiences are, why they were made, and the larger social-
political circumstances surrounding its production. Contextual support
is vital in offering justified interpretation by moving beyond intuitive
readings based on subjective personal experiences. At tertiary levels,
comics criticism in the art classroom can also uncover hidden layers
of issues using the approaches from political and ideological criticism
through the lens of Feminism, queer, post-colonial readings, and Marxist
readings. Contextual analysis also requires knowledge in the history of
comics, the social-political situation during the work’s creations, the
artist’s background and intentions, and other types of culturally specific
references made within the work. Contextual analysis can also pave the
way to developing a solid evaluation argument, by supplementing value
judgement with objective facts and professional insights.

Evaluating Comics
Evaluation, or making value judgement about an artwork, is the final
step in Feldman’s approach and the goal of art criticism. Evaluation is
a persuasive argument on whether the work is deemed good or bad.
Like interpretation, evaluation contains a certain degree of subjectivity
as there are no right and wrong, only convincing and unconvincing. It
should not be solely based upon personal preferences, but substantiated
30 C. Ding

with clear criteria and reasons (Barrett, 2011). Yet even with criteria,
judgement seems to be a contentious field because the criteria themselves
may also come under scrutiny: As art evolves, conventions regarding its
form and purpose are continuously challenged and expanded, and so are
the criteria for judgement. Theories of art and criteria of art criticism
have evolved through Realism, Expressionism, Formalism, and Insti-
tutionalism, each with their own theory of “what makes a good art”
(Barrett, 2017). Similarly, comics studies at university level today adopt
multi-disciplinary lenses such as Formalism, Feminism, Post-colonialism,
Queer studies, Philosophy, and Ideology (Smith & Duncan, 2011). In
contrast to the complexities of real-world and academic criticism which
can both praise or condemn, Art education in primary, secondary, and
pre-university classrooms usually put emphasis on fostering a sense of
appreciation (Zakaras & Lowell, 2008). As such, students are more often
exposed to historically or culturally significant works of art in the class-
room rather than criticizing works negatively. Similarly, comics criticism
in the art classroom should promote an appreciation for the art form.
Comics can be evaluated based on their merits and strengths such as
uniqueness of form, originality in content, effectiveness of communi-
cation, success in delivering impact, technical and aesthetic qualities,
as well as social and historical significance. Learning about the various
strengths of a wide variety of comics challenges students’ perception
of what comics can be, expands their consumption and demand for
quality works, while also inspiring them to create their own comics with
sophistication. In the long run, positive comics criticism in the art class-
room can lead to widened acknowledgement of its artistic value. Table 2
contains some questions to facilitate the use of Feldman’s approach, inte-
grated with Barrett’s (2002) formula, on critiquing comics and evaluating
their effectiveness.

Conclusion
The educational potential of comics is being examined in a variety of
subjects in primary and secondary schools, while the cultural and artistic
status of comics is becoming more recognized through the increased
Table 2 A guide to comics criticism: formal analysis, contextual analysis, and evaluation
Feldman’s approach Guiding questions
Formal 1. Describe Form
analysis Closely examine visual appearances, features, – What is the format of the comic?
material, and tactile qualities – What kind of style is used?
– What are some recognizable graphic conventions?
– What do you notice about the use of colours and
lines?
Refer to more questions specific to Elements of
Comics in Table 1
2. Analyze Effect
Assess the resulting visual effects – What is the general tone depicted?
– What mood does it express?
– How are the panels laid out and how does that
affect pacing?
Refer to more questions specific to Elements of
Comics in Table 1
(continued)
Breaking Boundaries: The Place of Comics in Art Education
31
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