Comics

 “Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”

― Dr. Seuss, comic-strip artist

Comic is a well known, though quite underestimated book genre. Most people think about comics as colourful pages that basically describe the life and the achievements of superheroes. However, it is one of the most evolved genres and this commonplace upon comics is quite far from the truth, and now we are going to illustrate why. 

Firstly, comics are short pieces of writing which tell a story through pictures and dialogues, but it doesn’t mean this literary genre is underdeveloped: in fact, there are three very important categories of comics.

The first one is the Japanese one, known as manga, which includes a wide range of storylines such as adventure, action, horror, drama, love stories etc. told through black and white pictures.

Then we have the American format, whose protagonists are characters like Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Hulk  and many others.

Following, there are the European comics, such as Le Journal de Mickey, Looky Look, Asterix and TinTin, which are focused on funny plots and characters to entertain the public. Some of the most successful comics from all the three categories have been turned into movies (animation or live action), or TV series.

Reading comics has many important advantages. 

First of all, they can contribute to the ideal entrance of a person to the literary world, as most people are more easily attracted by colourful pictures and visual information rather than books. Also, many classic books have been turned into comics, such as: The Three Musketeers by Morvan, Oliver Twist by Dauvillier, Pope Johanna by Leuteris Papathanasis, and this can stimulate readers to discover the original novels. 

In addition to that, comics effectively represent a very intelligent medium through which to spread culture among the younger generations. For example, there are historical graphic novels about the lives of important people, such as The Life of Frederick Douglass by David Walker; or even comics about science which can help people to approach these topics and learn about them more easily and with less effort , like  Logicomix, a graphic novel which through the biography of Bertnard Russell describes the development of Mathematics and Informatic during the 20th century.

Therefore, satirical comics represent a very important vehicle of new ideas, information and reflection about society, because they aim to show problems within society in a comical way satirizing politicians and situations to respectively underline their defects and stimulate the reader’s mind to understand how to solve them.

In conclusion, writing comics is a real art and nobody should consider  it as a superficial work that just helps entertaining and having fun. In fact, those pages can help grasp complex and important concepts, and that’s why we should read them eagerly.