I got to lecture a class of 4th graders on comics

By kalel21
Posted on: Mar 19th 2008 at 9:15 AM

Replies: 3

I work at an art college library. This week, I hosted a class of 4th graders from a local Christian school, giving them a talk about the history of comic strips and comic books.

I put together a Power Point presentation, starting with "The Yellow Kid" and running up through the early Marvel superhero stuff, then jumped ahead to "Calvin and Hobbes."

It went great--mostly because the 9-year-olds were polite and attentive, asking some really great quesions. At one point, I showed them a week's worth of Captain Easy strips, explaining how the cliffhanger aspect of the strip made sure people would buy the newspaper each day. One of the kids asked some surprisingly sophisticated questions about how everyone involved (publishers, artists and newsboys) got paid.

To my initial surprise, none of them knew "Calvin and Hobbes." But, of course, the strip ended before they were born and there is no merchandising or animation to keep poor Calvin in the public eye. But when I let them spend time looking through the various books I had ready, several of them were enthralled with Calvin. One of the teachers was pleased with this--apparently, she always referred to their recess time as "Calvinball," but none of the kids had ever known what she was talking about.

When they were looking through the books, several of them latched onto Carl Barks' Scrooge stories. One girl was fascinated by the Lee/Ditko Spider Man stories and was jumping up and down over the fact that Spidey once teamed up with the Fantastic Four. Another kid practically demanded to see the reprints of the early Superman stories, while yet another looked through a book of comic book covers and asked question after question about the obscure 1940s superheroes he was seeing.

Overall, it was a really fun experience. There's at least a couple of more children out there who know about Uncle Scrooge and Calvin.

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Comments:

Posted by: Don Markstein

Posted on: 2008-03-20 at 05:05:07 AM

That's terrific, Kal. It's really fun, when something like that works so well. Of course, this was done on a much grander scale, but it reminds me of when I used to read to my kids every night, which I kept up as long as they'd sit still for it, well into their teens. (The secret is always stay ahead of their own reading level -- we got to the point where I read them an unabridged translation of The Count of Monte Cristo over a period of a couple of months, and they loved it.)

Of course, we read comics as well as prose. It's hard to read comics to kids, because they have to be placed where they can see the pictures. But if there are few enough (I have two daughters), you can do it without an overhead projector. We did Barks, of course, which always went over great. (They started picking up the Gladstone album editions on their own after a while, which was my signal to move on to harder stuff -- sadly, of course, because Barks is great aloud.)

Prince Valiant was another big favorite. We did the Fantagraphics editions in increments, from the beginning until about 1950. The chase to America, which we followed on a world map, had they jumping up and down with excitement. (Of course, I "happened" to mention in conversation just before that sequence, that Val lived a thousand years before Columbus.)

Anyway, I'm not a bit surprised to hear Calvin & Hobbes made a hit. It's not just hilarious -- Watterson's art is so dynamic, kids just naturally take to it. Parents should keep one or two of his books around the house, for their kids to pick up.

Thanks for sharing this, Kal. It's a great example of outreach, turning a new generation on to something they can really enjoy.

Quack, Don

Posted by: kalel21

Posted on: 2008-03-20 at 12:00:56 PM

Kids respond to great storytelling from any medium or time period, especially if it is presented to them by an adult who also loves a good story.

About a year ago, I was babysitting four children (then aged between 6 to 10)on Friday nights for about a three-month time span. For most of each night, we'd play a game or I'd let them each pick a couple of items out of my toy collection to play with.

But every week, we'd also take 15 minutes to watch the next chapter of the 1948 "Superman" serial with Kirk Alyn. They loved it, despite being in black-and-white with primitive special effects.

They simply enjoyed a well-told story. I'd ask them if they remembered what happened in last week's chapter, they would provide a more-or-less coherent recap, then we'd watch the next part. We ended up keeping count of how many times Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane were knocked out during the course of the serial. (If I remember correctly, Lois "won" by one knockout.)

Posted by: Don Markstein

Posted on: 2008-03-21 at 07:56:40 AM

I quite agree about kids. A lot of people think writing for them is easy, because after all, they're just kids, eh? Those people have never tried it. A good story will get their interest. Neglecting story values won't.

When my younger daughter, Karen, was in high school, she took a course in writing. At a parent event, the teacher told us he had a wide variety of aspiring writers -- some kids wanted to write prose, some wanted to write movies, there were even (chuckle) a couple who wanted to write, of all things, comic books! I managed to avoid interrupting him then and there to ask what the heck is wrong with writing comic books, but I did approach him afterward to tell him how I'd been making my living for the past few years. The result was that I got dragooned into giving a guest lecture.

Of course, most comics writers of the past couple of decades haven't given much thought to entertaining kids. But those of us who have, know very well that a juvenile audience is very picky. Adults may forgive a lot, but for kids, you've got to have a good story.

Quack, Don