A mother enters the room of her twelve-year-old son, seen lying down on his bed reading enthusiastically. Obviously pleased that her son is interested in reading rather than playing video games, the mother took a closer look at what he held in his hands. Soon, she came to realize that the book was nothing other than a comic! Distraught, the mother grabbed the book and scolded her son for reading a book with pictures and not a real book with just words. The son, angry with his mother for disturbing him, retaliated and argued that he wasn’t reading “mindless filth.” Taking a closer look at the cover of the book, the mother reads out the title: “The Fatal Bullet.” He was reading about the history of a President of the United States, James A. Garfield, and his assassination, hardly what many would call “mindless filth.”

The Fatal Bullet, written and drawn by Rick Geary, became renowned for its accurate depiction of the life of President James A. Garfield. Unlike many other popular comic books that parents familiarized themselves with, this
graphic novel doesn’t contain heroes with super powers. In fact, the book contains no color. The book tells the story of a man who rose to became the President of the United States up until his unfortunate assassination at the hands of Charles J. Guiteau. The Fatal Bullet tells an actual story based on fact that many would have otherwise learned about in history class. This leads to the debate of whether comic books, known to have ties to sensational super heroes and outrageous graphic violence, can be used as an effective tool in teaching history. Despite the many stereotypes of the medium as being children’s reading or non-educational tripe, comic books can, in fact, be helpful tools in teaching history, by looking at its advantage of telling stories through the combination of words and pictures that captivates readers as well as other ancient civilizations’ use of art to record chronicles.

The comic book industry has struggled in its fight to become a respectable medium that has more than just caped super heroes that fly. The market became saturated with costumed characters harnessing super human powers. This was mainly due to the introduction of Superman in Action Comics in the 1930s and ’40s, which became a national phenomenon. Later on in the 1950s, EC Comics launched more mature and graphic material such as Tales From the Crypt, which drew much criticism from worried parents and politicians for its apparent lack of morals. The industry became a prime target for censorship and debate. Comic books lacked the respect and recognition as a literary and art form. Because of the ridicule and condemnation the industry faced, many critics hardly acknowledged the other possible uses of the medium other than entertainment. One should see the potential comic books have as an effective teaching aide, especially for history.

The application of the comic book media form as a history book has hardly been frequent. But publishers should realize the capability it has to be one and how much success it could bring them. History, usually taught in schools through thick textbooks with many, many words and few pictures thrown in between, usually bores students with habitual facts and dates. Details about events can be hard to picture and the writers of the textbooks hardly write in a way that utilizes the imagination of the readers. The lack of captivating the reader leads to a boring and lackluster experience that will ultimately make them forget the material, unless they spent their time reading over again in order to just memorize details rather than the whole picture of events.

This leads to the comic book as the tool for teaching history. Because comic books have both words and pictures that tell the story, they can really enthrall the readers. One can simply read about the Civil War in many American textbooks, but to actually read about it in a comic book really entices the imagination. Instead of reading about the numbers of people who fought, or where and when they fought, they actually see a battle scene with the numbers of soldiers in battle covering pages. The reader can see the pain and plight many faced in the war. They can also learn better about the events that lead up to the war, such as the dispute between the North and South over slavery. The point being, people can easily be bored by the formal writing of textbooks, but can just be as easily enticed to read about the event in a comic book by its graphic art and unique storytelling.

Critics can say that comic books are a medium best left to super hero stories, but no other reason exists why comics can’t be used as teaching tools. Instead of being criticized for being a medium solely used for entertainment purposes, comics need to harness for other purposes more frequently. Several books exist already to demonstrate the power of comic books as literary and artistic masterpieces, Geary’s The Fatal Bullet as one example. Also, acclaimed writer and artist Art Spiegelman successfully depicted an emotion-inspiring tale about the Holocaust in Maus. While Maus recounts only the experience of one of the many victims of the Holocaust, it nonetheless centers on a historic event that readers can understand and connect with more personally.

Readers can retain the information from comics more easily rather than textbooks due to the graphic images that get imprinted in their memories. Also, reader involvement increases dramatically since they are now using their imaginations as well as being entertained at the same time. Critics may now question the effectiveness of comic books in the classroom. Students may think that just because they’re reading comic books, class will be a breeze with no work. This may be true, but in only some of the sense. Students face the stereotypes of comic books that many parents instill in them: comic books exist for entertainment purposes only, with no redeeming values whatsoever. Comic books will be more fascinating and engaging to readers, thus getting them to learn and understand the material more easily. The premise behind comic books to teach is to make learning as fun and enjoyable as possible.

One may now question why comic books are not used more frequently in classrooms. This can be due to the fact that creating comics is time consuming, since writers need to come up with a script and then the artists must actually draw the whole story. The process may be extended even longer with the addition of color. Then all of this work is to produce a story that centers around one event in history. Imagine the immense work that must encompass a comic book that tells the whole history within a normal textbook. This is one of the downfalls of comic books. The shear number of events in history makes the task of telling them all in comic books difficult. This sacrifice can be balanced with the effectiveness comics have as a teaching aid. Comics shouldn’t have to replace textbooks everywhere. Instead they should be utilized as tools and supplements to textbooks. Thus, the stories can reinforce the material so students can better learn and retain the historic events.

One should realize, however, that ancient civilizations have used pictorial stories to tell history. Hundreds of years ago, France produced the Bayeux Tapestry, a 230-foot long tapestry that details the Norman conquest of England, beginning 1066. The tapestry can be read left to right, as the images form the saga of the conquest in chronological order. Also, Egyptian paintings created over thirty-two centuries ago can be found in ancient tombs. Read in a different way, interpreters must scan the paintings starting from the bottom and zigzag towards the top. Despite the lack of words to tell the story, the art can still show what happened back in Egyptian times. The invention of printing later took the art form as a history telling device to a new level, bringing it to the masses. According to Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, “The Father of the modern comic in many ways is Rodolphe Topher, whose light satiric picture stories, starting in the mid-1800’s, employed cartooning and panel borders, and featured the first interdependent combination of words and pictures seen in Europe” (McCloud 17).

Looking at the actual history of comics, one can see that the combination of words and pictures can convey ideas very easily. Images communicate ideas very well, helping viewers to get in their minds a scene and the actions that take place in them. Classroom textbooks, along with its lack of graphic pictures, make learning a bit more difficult since the prim and proper writers make the process more formal and less entertaining. Education can be better reinforced with supplemental materials that make it more enjoyable and memorable. Comics have become more mainstream in recent years, thanks mainly to the introduction of the industry into other forms of media such as television and movies. However, these programs and films still spawn from the popularized super hero genre. This may help bolster the stereotype of comics as being a costumed hero medium, but one should also realize that the movies and television shows bring in more readers, thus broadening the audience. Hopefully, the more people read comic books, the more people will discover that there are more to the comic book than just a man in a cape.

1. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1994.