Nazia Week 2

According to Horricks (2004), how have perceptions of comics as a media changed?


According to Horricks (2004) in the early 50s there was a major negative perception of comics and graphic novels, with not only conservatives but also some socialists who were against children being exposed to them. There was one quote in the article which mentioned that if comics were banned then the chances of wars would be reduced, which is slightly dramatic in my opinion. Although, Tintin and The Blue Lotus did strike me as a tad bit violent for young children; and there were a number of racial slurs in the text too. Horricks has mentioned that the perception has changed a lot since this time; however the negativity has not fully disappeared. Now this particular genre has received literary prizes and recognition in the community.


A point that Horricks makes is that the concerns being expressed against comics is nothing new because other forms of literature (e.g. theatre, novels, etc) have all been subject to this at one point or another. Which I think is a valid point because the so-called moral scandal that is being put forward as an argument against comics is something that would have been encountered by other poets and writers in earlier centuries. It’s that thing that happens when something new comes about and people don’t fully understand it. Just as Horricks says, we use a type of analysis that we are familiar with and have used on previous types of literature, and if the new genre or text does not fit into this “type” it can be classified as “weak”.


References

Horricks, D. (2004). The Perfect Planet: Comics, games and world-building. In Williams,M. (Ed.), Writing at the Edge of the Universe. Christchurch: U of Canterbury Press.