The Superhero at 80

     A one-day-belated birthday to the Man of Steel, whose first appearance in Action Comics 1, though cover-dated June, hit newsstands on April 18th, 1938.  Eighty years later to the day, Action Comics 1000 hit comic stores yesterday.  From two-fisted, tough talking champion of social justice, defender of the oppressed and scourge of corrupt politicians to iconic symbol of humanity's best values and hopes, Superman seems as necessary a symbol now as ever before. 
     An eightieth birthday makes a fine time to revisit, or experience for the first time, what makes the character great.  This New York Times article is quite helpful in that regard.
     Not incidentally to all this, it's good to see that eighty years after their invention, superheroes are still leaders in a particular field of specialty: breaking down walls, in this country and all across the world.

American Social Discourse

     As reported in the New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates, "one of the country's best known intellectuals" and recent writer for the Black Panther comic, will be taking over writing on Captain America in July.  So, to sum up, one of our preeminent social thinkers is consistently choosing the form of comics to hold a discourse with the American people.  In the immortal words of Stan Lee, "'nuff said."

Revisting

     I got a look at Library Quarterly's full review of Graphic Novels in Your School Library recently, a review I'd only ever seen the first page of previously.  Written by Rebecca Oxley, it's an extended, scholarly take on the book, satisfyingly cogent in both it's praise and it's criticism.  While I must concede that she's got me on my relatively small amount of attention paid to manga and to dealing with challenges to graphic novels in libraries, she also said "Karp is cognizant of diversity throughout the selected works, supporting representation of multiple racial, ethnic, disability, gender, and sexual orientation groups and identities. . . His lessons of how to read, make, and evaluate GN not only legitimize them as invaluable tools, but they teach a new generation of stakeholders that the ability to negotiate within this esteemed art form is itself an emerging twenty-first-century skill."
     Though my book was written only a relatively short time ago, we're are now living in a profoundly different era when it comes to diversity and gender identity.  I'm very happy to know that my messages in those areas remain relevant and useful today, but I'll also say that, having gone back through my book after a number of years, it's bracing just how much is in there that I've completely forgotten about.  There's an assumption, perhaps, that having constructed a book from within your own mind, it sticks with you always.  But I found rereading the book like having a conversation with another man, my younger self, who retains ideas I've long since assimilated into my practice and thus given little thought to.  It's somewhat alarming to find out that my younger self still has plenty to teach me.     
 

    

Comics Literature

From Set to Sea by Drew Weing

     Recently assigned to review the magnificent The Vision by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta, I got to thinking about what could be considered literature in comics form.  If literature is "writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest" (according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary), then let us say that graphic literature does the same, but in the form of sequential art; not simply excellence of expression in the writing and the art, but also in the power of their synthesis to express those ideas of permanent or universal interest.
     So, this is a list of ten pieces of graphic literature.  By no means complete (shouldn't something from Crumb, Pekar, Hernandez or Morrison be here?  Doesn't Black Hole by Charles Burns deserve a spot? Was "Corpse on the Imjin" by Harvey Kurtzman perhaps the earliest example of graphic literature?  What about more work from other countries?), these are what I reckon to be the core titles of graphic literature, extraordinary works that have been, for the most part, culturally embraced.  The list is in chronological order.

Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Allison Bechdel
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Beyond

     While Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi seems to be eliciting a complicated reaction from Star Wars fans, among its sundry pleasures and occasional frustrations, I found a piece of wisdom that really resonated for me as a teacher.  Commenting on the relationship between teachers and students, a Jedi master of some note poignantly observes "We are what they move beyond.  That is the true burden of all masters."
    If we did our job right, our students leave us far, far behind.  It gets you right in the heart sometimes, but how will the world get better unless the young come to understand more deeply and act more bravely than their mentors?