Blog 1: Developing Graphic Textbooks for Undergraduate Study

            It is my opinion that one day introductory-level educational graphic textbooks for college students will be the norm rather than the exception. As part of my Ph.D. dissertation, I have created this blog in order to explore ways to achieve that goal. For the next six weeks I will make two blog posts per week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) covering various topics for the public to read, and critique. In this way it is hoped that educators, students, publishers, and the creative community will use this as a forum to help set academic standards for the development of future undergraduate-level educational graphic textbooks.

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A (Very) Short History of Graphic Textbooks

            Since most of you already know what Sequential Art is I will skip over much of the history of the medium (for now). While working on his book, Comics and Sequential Art (1985), Eisner, who was in his mid-sixties and had been illustrating comic stories for fifty years, realized that he “was involved in an ‘art of communication’ more than simply an application of art,” (Eisner, 1985, 6) and that “thoughtful pedagogical concern would provide a better climate for the production of more worthy subject content and expansion of the medium as a whole.” (Eisner, 1985, 5) At the time Comics & Sequential Art was written graphic novels were still in their infancy, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus had yet to win a Pulitzer Prize. However, Eisner understood the potential power of the medium, and concluded that “the future of this form awaits participants who truly believe that the application of sequential art, with its interweaving of words and pictures, could provide a dimension of communication that contributes—hopefully on a level never before attained—to the body of literature that concerns itself with the examination of human experience.” (Eisner, 1985, 138-139)

            Even though Eisner’s focus was on entertainment comic stories, he also illustrated both technical instruction comics, and attitudinal instruction comics, which are the precursors to graphic textbooks. (Eisner, 1985, 138-142) Technical instruction comics are illustrated instruction manuals such as directions for putting together a bicycle. These teaching aids are meant to involve the reader through explanatory text and images drawn from the reader’s perspective. Technical instruction comics are an experiential learning tool that helps the reader though a sequence of events in order to perform tasks to completion. Attitudinal instruction comics are dramatizations of events such as “How to get a job.”  The concept behind attitudinal instruction comics is to visually and dramatically show readers situations that they have not yet experienced. Japan, Inc.: Introduction to Japanese Economics (1988), a dramatic look at President Reagan-era politics and economics, follows this schema, and many young reader’s books over the years such as A Visit to the Doctor (1960) and Loose Tooth, My First I Can Read (2005) can also be considered attitudinal instruction comics. 

            In 1993, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud answered Eisner’s wish for a more “thoughtful pedagogical concern” with a deconstructive instructional graphic textbook that utilized sequential art in order to explain sequential art. Understanding Comics was the first attempt at popularizing the idea of graphic textbooks. In it McCloud defines the art of comic books as, “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.” (McCloud, 1993, 9) While this is a more precise definition of the art form, it is too cumbersome for purposes of this paper, so I will continue using Eisner’s term sequential art instead. It should be noted that neither term/definition mentions the use of text, which, for a graphic textbook, especially one designed specifically for undergraduate students, is problematic. Though wordless panels may be used sparingly for dramatic effect, the definition for sequential art, as it relates directly to undergraduate-level textbooks, must include the implicit mandate that the information being taught is achieved through the use of visual art accompanied by complimentary text, juxtaposed text, or parallel text.

            In Heidi Hammond’s book, Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy: A Reader Response Study (2009), she states in her Review of the Literature that there are few academic studies regarding educational graphic novels because they have such a short history (Hammond, 2009, p. 42).  Currently there are very few educational graphic textbooks available for teaching students at the undergraduate level. Considering the increased interest in biographical, autobiographical, and journalistic graphic novels among college and university instructors (The Chronicle Review, September 23, 2011), the educational graphic textbook is an underutilized pedagogical tool.

            Over the past several years a few graphic textbooks have been published that have supported my belief in the pedagogical potential of this medium. Some of these are Optical Allusions (2009) by Jay Hosler, Ph.D.; Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation (2009) by Michael Keller, and Nicolle Rager Fuller; Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth (2011) by Jay Hosler, Ph.D., Kevin Cannon, and Zander Cannon; DNA: A Graphic Guide to the Molecule that Shook the World (2011) by Israel Rosenfield, Edward Ziff, and Borin Van Loon; and The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume One: Microeconomics (2010) and Volume Two: Macroeconomics (2011) by Yoram Bauman, Ph.D., and Grady Klein. While some of these graphic textbooks can be used (and have been used) to teach undergraduates the quality of the scholarship in other graphic textbooks currently being published is uneven. I believe that this inconsistency in scholarship should not be seen as a detriment, but rather as an opportunity.

Topics for Discussion

Your participation is greatly appreciated. Please understand that whatever is posted here may end up in my dissertation and/or future writings on this subject. If you do not wish to be included then do not post anything. Thank you!

Questions or concerns regarding this research may be addresses to dissertation advisor, Dr. Candace Stout at stout.127@osu.edu, or Brian Kane at kane.112@osu.edu. For questions about your rights as a participant in this study or to discuss other study-related concerns or complaints with someone who is not part of the research team, you may contact Ms. Sandra Meadows in the Office of Responsible Research Practices at 1-800-678-6251.).

1) While I would consider The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA by Mark Schultz, Zander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon appropriate for Honor and Advanced Placement High School students, neither Mark nor I consider it suitable for college-level students because of the lack of academic rigor that went into its production. Other than the books listed above, what other undergraduate-level graphic textbooks should be added to the list and why?

2) What standards (checks and balances) need to exist in order to guarantee the academic credibility of graphic textbooks?

3) Once academic standards are established how do we convince publishers to adopt them? What would be the protocols for peer review of graphic textbooks?