On Friday I have to do a presentation on possible teaching ideas for my English class and I've chosen comics. I basically know what points I want to hit at but I figure it would be really helpful if a list of comics could be provided to my classmates.

I already have a list in my head but I know there are more comics out there then the ones I read. I also probably missed a few good ones. So basically, if you know of a good comic that I can use in an educational setting I would love to hear from you. If you can, tell me what it's about so I can get a general feel of it.

For those of you who aren't sure, I consider classroom appropriate to be comics that do not have nudity, excessive violence/sexuality, profanity, and promotes hate (we have hate laws in Canada.)

Here are the ones I'm thinking of mentioning in no particular order:

- Owly
- Maus
- A Contract with God
- When the Wind Blows
- Yotsuba&!
- Short Program
- Azumanga Daioh
- Calvin and Hobbes
- TinTin
- The Voices of a Distant Star (I'm iffy about this.)
- Copper
- The Chelation Kid

Comics I haven't read but either own or have heard of that I think may be appropriate to use in a classroom:

- Baron The Cat Returns
- Metropolis

And yes, I'll even take webcomic suggestions but I perfer print suggestions since they're more portable then the Internet. :)

Calvin and Hobbes is such a good choice. It's one of those classics that'll just last forever.

This may sound silly, but Foxtrot might also be another one to think of. It's really just silly but all of the math teachers in my school just love it and bring the strips into class.

Herobear

Alice is a good one as well

What was that nature one...

Mark Trail [en.wikipedia.org]?

It never appeared in my newspaper, but when I visited some cousins out of state, I looked at their comic pages. They had one called Mark Trail where some forest ranger guy explained animals and nature.

I don't know, 'hie qwalitie comcs' might be considered educational since it's about the evils of marijuana and prison rape...

http://www.reasonedcognition.com/

it's about science.
I've skimmed it a while ago. looked pretty informative.

Scott McClouds work's always educational.

Also, I Feel Sick by Jhonen Vasquez is pretty deep if you wanna analyse it.

Lastly, props for you trying to teach your english class about comics. I know that's something I'd wanna do in school.

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Oh wait...actually if you don't want violence then the last chapter's no good. But it depends on the age group. High schoolers or college students would be able to handle it, but I'm not sure about anyone younger than that.

I leave the descriptions to Amazon ;):

Louis Riel by Chester Brown

http://tinyurl.com/e5lqt

Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco. Sacco is a journalist who uses comics as his medium. Good stuff.

http://tinyurl.com/jjcev

http://tinyurl.com/z8k4d

Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware. Won the Guardian Book Prize. Ware has been featured in the NY Times literary supplement and magazine section as well as the Whitney Museum.

http://tinyurl.com/zlccw

Bone by Jeff Smith I haven't actually read all of this one yet.

http://tinyurl.com/fltm8

Let's see, Yossel by Joe Kubert is the story of a Jewish artist in the Holocaust that is presented as that artist's sketchbook journal. Larry Gonick has done a bunch of entertaining "Cartoon History" books of the Universe and America etc.

And there are some wonderful classic strips like the Kinder Kids, Little Nemo, and Krazy Kat.

You also might try Age of Bronze by Shanower, it is a historical retelling of the Trojan War. It has some sex in it but I'm pretty sure it is of a PG-13 level of tameness.

There are other works like Black Hole, epileptic, persepolis, and Buddha by Osamu Tezuka that seem highly regarded but unfortunately I haven't read them so I can't vouch for their content.

Haha, Yotsubato is fantaaaaaaastic. :) Who needs florists? >:O

Although already mentioned, I'll second Bone. It's getting pretty difficult to find the issues though, it seems Scholasitc has decided to pull the B/W versions and reissue them in smaller, color versions. I believe the first few are out anyway. I can't find book 9 though because it's not being printed right now though. :( So no one tell me how it ends!

Watchmen, if I remember correctly, does have a bunch of swearing and stuff in it. It's kind of surprising how comics that adults consider normal actually contain a good bit of swearing, etc. It is nice and deep but I don't know about content appropriateness. (I think I Feel Sick has profanity too...)

Usagi Yojimbo is good. :) Hmm, I'll have to think about some others.

OF COURSE!!! MAUS!! How the hell did I forget that? (loud exclamation followed by "im a retard dance" )

Definately do Maus. It's a great book by Art Spiegalman (hes Jew) about his fathers experiences the holocaust. The whole thing is incredibly deep and packed full of metaphors. Eg. The aperance of the characters and how all Jews are drawn as mice and all Germans as cats. Also the way he relates what happened to his father and his fathers personality as an old man (a grouchy miser)

Don't take my word for it. Take Wikipedia's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus [en.wikipedia.org]

Maus is being taught in some schools (including mine) and people seem to think of it as one of the best comics ever made. Personally, as much as I admire Art Speigleman and liked Maus, I can't say that I consider it the best graphic novel ever written.

The thing with Watchmen, and maybe with Maus too though I doubt it, is that it's so amazingly deep with such a wide array of symbols. Disecting the text is one thing, but it's also possible to disect the pictures. Even people's hair colors have meaning.

Personally I wish every college english course including Watchmen in their syllabus. However until then I'll just keep trying to get it into contemporary lit. classes.

ccs1989
The thing with Watchmen, and maybe with Maus too though I doubt it, is that it's so amazingly deep with such a wide array of symbols. Disecting the text is one thing, but it's also possible to disect the pictures. Even people's hair colors have meaning.

Personally I wish every college english course including Watchmen in their syllabus. However until then I'll just keep trying to get it into contemporary lit. classes.

Have you read "From Hell" by Moore and Eddie Campbell? It's reaaaaallly inappropriate for a high school English class but since you like Watchmen and its narrative density so much I imagine you'd dig it too if you haven't read it.

Mr. Blank is a fun read, I'm not sure how much educational value it has though. :)

Also I really love Sparks... but I think there may be a not-too-detailed sex scene in it. It's an excellent book though. It's about an awkward girl from a broken home who builds her own friend out of car parts... they end up falling in love but nothing seems to go right for them. :( It's called "an urban fairy tale" and it really is. There are a lot of fairy tale themes but also it's a story about independence, self-confidence, etc.

It's getting pretty difficult to find the issues though, it seems Scholasitc has decided to pull the B/W versions and reissue them in smaller, color versions.

While they are rereleasing it, it may be easier to find the massive complete collection book that has all the black and white comics. I bought that not to long ago from Borders. If they don't have it in stores, you can definitely still get it through online sites.

I wouldn't recommend Azumanga Daioh for teaching kids. While not frequent, ADV did throw in some cursing just to jack the rating up to teen. Plus, as a seinen comic, it does have some pointless fan service in places. I don't think it would scar them too much, but you never know what parents will complain about. You'll find that to be true in most manga, though, even a lot of the manga originally aimed at kids.

Kline
Let's see, Yossel by Joe Kubert is the story of a Jewish artist in the Holocaust that is presented as that artist's sketchbook journal. Larry Gonick has done a bunch of entertaining "Cartoon History" books of the Universe and America etc.

Larry Gonick is the epitome of educational cartoonists-- he's also done books on physics, statistics, genetics, and calculus that are actually bearable to read. Excellent stuff.

As for novel-type books... Craig Thompson's book Blankets was a big hit with my English class when I reported on it. (Of course, I didn't tell my teacher it was a graphic novel beforehand, so it might have been a bit unexpected...) Also, I got this book at the Baltimore Comic Convention called The Lone And Level Sands that's basically a retelling of Exodus from the Pharaoh's point of view. Both involve religion, so that might get you into a bit of hot water, and Blankets also has some stuff in it about sex (but if ever there was a comic that does sex tastefully, this is it), but they're both good reads.

As for comic strips, what could possibly have more educational value than Zippy the Pinhead ?

~IJ

PS: Also, I'm reading a book right now by a guy named Yoshihiro Tatsumi called Abandon the Old In Tokyo. I'm not usually a bit fan of manga, but this stuff is seriously solid. It's a little bit like American Splendor (Ooh! American Splendor is another good educational comic), but set, of course, in Japan-- stories about average people with average problems, told in a straightforward style but with a lot of emphasis put on the main character's thoughts and emotions. Good stuff. Check it out.

Blankets reminded me of Goodbye, Chunky Rice which is short but truly excellent. It has many of the same themes as Blankets but it's cute little animals and a sad fisherman. Oh man, the puppies..... ;_;

As for the manga category.... Nausicaa for sure. What an excellent series.

I was going to name Blankets too which I think is probably one of the ideal teen graphic novels but decided not because of the recent and stupid controversy in Missouri where some local yahoos labeled in "porn", made a big fuss and ended up getting it removed from the library:

http://www.marshallnews.com/story/1171432.html

http://www.marshallnews.com/story/1172698.html


Dumbasses. Just read some of the actual quotes from the residents in the first article.Unbelievable. But despite this, I agree it is a good pick.

The Escaflowne manga released in the US is rated OT (Older Teen 16+).

Usually you'll get T for a bit of violence and the usual Japanese curse words of "Damn it!" and "Bastard!"...

That's usually what gets most mang a higher rating, even though the Japanese language has very few and seldom used curse words. Most of the words are thrown in by the English translators since there isn't really any way to translate the various levels of politeness you get in Japanese speech. They often figure using more vulgar language in English will attract the teen audience they're looking for, even though they can easily express the same meaning without cursing.

Personally I prefer the "@#&*!" way of cursing myself.