Comic books make for super literature
What is literature? In a classroom, this is a question that will inevitably lead to many slack-jawed stares and grumblings before the group gives up and waits for the instructor to tell them the “correct” answer.
On the offbeat occasion that someone does decide to solve the puzzle, they are then met with an even more challenging question: what types of writing count as literature? Works from regulars such as William Shakespeare and Mark Twain are universally recognized and taught in literary circles, but what about more modern contenders like “The Hunger Games,” or the seemingly endless number of Stephen King novels? And where do newspapers and blogs fall into this mess?
We need to abandon the clichéd idea that literature is strictly limited to words on a page. Literature is about expressing truth, and while we all know that the written word is up to the task, there is an equally effective medium that is all but ignored in the literary world: the comic book.
Wait, what? That’s preposterous. What truth lies in a story about a man who beats the crap out of people with the American flag?
A comic book is, simply put, a written story with a director. The capes, suits of armor, and ripped purple shorts are only a vessel to deliver that story. Just because they aren’t written in Middle English does not mean they are any less valid than any other literature.
Some would argue that the tales in comic books aren’t based enough in reality to be actual literature, but this is nonsense. “Conventional” literature hardly adheres to the rules of reality. Beowulf fought dragons and demons, Goodman Brown took a walk in the woods with Satan, and Macbeth sought advice from three witches.
Though comics have fantastic elements to them, caped crusaders tackle real-life issues like love, hate, tragedy, and irony. For example, Iron Man, while being a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, was once a raging alcoholic. Heroes like Batman and Spider-Man fight to fill the enormous voids left by the deaths of their loved ones. Even Thor, a god in Norse mythology, has had to wrestle with woman troubles.
Comics also serve up reflections and criticisms of the time period in which they are created, just as all famous books do. In this way, comics have their roots in real-world history. Captain America was made as a morale-boosting mascot of WWII. The Incredible Hulk, a monster created by radiation, was a product of Cold War fears of nuclear armaments. The Silver Surfer was an intergalactic being with love and compassion for all living things, i.e., a flower child from space.
Certain prejudices towards comics no doubt arise from their cartoon-ish and over-the-top art style, but this one-two punch of written word working with visual images gives us levels of depth that words sometimes cannot accomplish on their own. Being able to see the torment on a guilty man’s face or the bleak desolation of a city reduced to rubble can move us emotionally, and that can make a story more approachable than if it appears in the traditional wall-of-words format. The only difference between comic books and conventional reading is that we are allowed to see the heroes’ struggles with our actual vision as they pan out, and we don’t have to rely solely on the imagination.
So the next time you see one of these larger-than-life characters on the big screen or on the page, ask yourself, if you strip away the superpowers and the costumes, what are you left with? You’re left with a person; one with problems, hopes, ambitions, and dreams, a person just like you. What greater truth could there be than that?