Heart of the City by Steenz for April 15, 2019

Hey teach, be glad she’s reading at all!

Mister Burgess better have a chat with the library too.

Someone give Mr. Burgess a comic.

Somebody get him “Maus”. Or maybe Mr. Burgess is the kind of teacher that “is always right, because I’m the teacher, and thusly you are wrong.”

Of course, that rule would not include any Heart of the City graphic albums!

Fight this one, Heart! Graphic Novels are merely different representations of novels and THUSLY are books!

Mr. Burgess might find it interesting to know that I got my love of Shakespeare from a comic book.Many years ago, when I was about eight years old, I got a Classics Illustrated Junior version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

The dialogue was simplified, the illustrations were gorgeous, and the plot was simplified enough for me to follow.

Now, more than 50 years later, I still love Shakespeare.

I owe that love to a long-ago comic book.

Language advisory for the introduction, but the late singer-songwriter Harry Chapin wrote about this teacher over 40 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y5t-dAa6UA

You mean “glorified comic /books/”, Mr. Burgess?

Today Spokane Public Schools announced they are eliminating school librarian positions.

Just say you misunderstood and ask for a second chance to redo the assignment.

I love the funnies, and some of the longer more serious ones, too. But Teach is absolutely correct: they aren’t novels. Not even most “Graphic Novels” have the depth and scope normal people would associate with an actual novel. And even if they do, they STILL aren’t novels, anymore than a play is a movie, or a blues jam is a symphony. It’s not simply a matter of respect or pretension, it’s a matter of form.

Going with Heart on this one, big-time. Just to name a couple, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman in their graphic novel formats have both appeared on “Best Novel” lists – comicbook origins or not.

I think that copying a scene from a comic book misses the point of the excercise. It’s to use your imagination to create a visual scene from the written word. Having pictures kind of kills that sort of imagination.

Grrrr

Somebody needs to convince that so-called “teacher” to find a new profession and stop interfering with the kids’ education.

Fight the power, Heart!!

I take it Heart’s teacher hasn’t read Congressman John Lewis’ March. I really did think we were past people crapping on graphic novels. Many of them are genius and absolutely literature.

If I were a teacher, I’d introduce my students to radio dramas, starting with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When you listen to a radio drama, your mind uses the same imaginative skills as it does when reading.

As a librarian, I’d be having a chat with Mr. Burgess, too. ‘Ghosts’ by Raina Telgemeier is a book. It may be a graphic novel, but it still counts as a book and has never been a text-only book. Every library I ever ran had plenty of graphic novels, some were graphic versions of famous novels or popular novels, but I made sure there were loads of graphics as well as text novels. Get the kids hooked on the story in graphic form and they’ll move to the text version themselves to see what the differences are. I started my oldest nephew on ‘Elfquest’ back in 1983. He was a reluctant reader and was getting into mischief, too. Once I had him hooked on reading he moved on to more challenging books. By high school he was exploring the classics like Dickens, Hugo, Asimov, etc. all on his own. And yes, the ‘Heart’ books migrated to my library, too.

Wonderful… First the Suessical fiasco, and now this…

We were at the bookstore today. On display in the front of the store was “The Handmaids Tale”.

In graphic novel form.

What fun!

With no due respect, Mr. Burgess, you just got owned by a middle schooler.