Running Head: Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy: How Graphic Novels Fit into the Changing Literary World Rebecca J. Welton State University College of New York at Cortland

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy Abstract The literary world as we once knew it is changing and expanding as the Digital Age marches on. As author Carey Jewitt, (2008) notes in his article Multimodality and Literacy in School Classrooms, literacy as we know it can no longer be restricted to books, poems, short stories, and articles discussed in English classrooms, but rather it needs to work with changing technology and other forms of media to create a more coherent, applicable, and modern form of literacy that is usable not only in the classroom but outside the classroom and beyond, (p. 241-242). Comic books and graphic novels fit nicely into this rapidly changing literary world as they not only enrich multiple literacies, but also are multimodal, featuring images and words. Taking a look at several comics studies, including Karin Kukkonens Comics as a Test Case for Transmedial Narratology, Dale Jacobs Multimodal Constructions of Self: Autobiographical Comics and the Case of Joe Matts Peepshow, James Carters Transforming English with Graphic Novels: Moving toward our Optimus Prime, and Silke Horstkotte and Nancy Pedris Focalization in Graphic Narrative, it can be shown that in spite of mostly negative, depreciative attitudes toward comics and graphic novels, they do have literary merits and are slowly gaining acceptance in a multimodal, multiliterary world of education.

Carey Jewitt claims that childrens media culture opens wider notions of learning beyond the school system, (p. 242), and, the same can be applied for teens and adults as well. Although Jewitts focus is mostly on computers and other emerging technologies, there are other forms of literacy that have developed out of media once thought to be purely entertainment in its most juvenile form: comic books and graphic novels. Since comics are both visual and text based, they are already multimodal. Multimodality, as described by Jewitt , is a type of attribution of meaning that not only covers text, but visuals, sound, and other elements to create meaning, (p. 246). Kukkonen elaborates on this by stating that the choices made in arranging a graphic novels panels, text, speech bubbles, and other elements can

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy create different meanings and in turn, different modes, (pg. 1). Both Kukkonen and Jewitt point out that literacy is changing greatly in current years, with less and less focus on strictly text-based learning and

literacy. Information can be distributed in many different forms in our modern society and text-learning is slowly becoming less and less important, becoming but one of many forms of literacy. Also, more and more children are becoming visual learners because of their exposure to visual media at an early age and the increased importance of technology in their lives and the lives of their families. It is difficult for many teachers, parents, and others who hold onto their original text-based learning and branch out into visual media, along with abandoning any reservations they may have about allowing themselves and the children they teach to read comic books as a form of education. In fact, this negative opinion and condemnation is why comic books are mostly not taught in classrooms and are still confined to small isolated sections in many bookstores. James Carter proposes a solution: transform and roll out, or, to transform their prior notions of literacy, transform classrooms into more student-friendly visually literal environment and to move with progress as advancements and progressions into different forms of literacy show no signs of stopping, (p. 49). He also claims that comics shouldnt be ignored just because teachers and parents dont get it, citing that his own family and teachers didnt understand his own enthusiasm for the Transformers cartoon and comics and yet he learned so many values and ideas from the multimodal series, (p. 50). So how can comics be understood as part of a new and emerging form of multimodal literacy? Although Jewitt focuses on different sort of media, Carter, Jacobs, Hortscotte and Pedri, and Kukkonen have solutions. Kukkonen claims that comics are a perfect example of words and images working in harmony to define one another. Whereas many a textbook will have a few token images, the words, speech bubbles, and illustrations of graphic novels play off of one another, and the media would be ineffective and unbalanced if one was given more attention than the other, (p. 2). Whereas many claim that images and text should be separate modes, Kukkonen argues that they are understood as one unique mode in comics because of transmedial narratology, the process by which a narrative is presented using

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy different media at the same time, (p. 2). The example that she uses throughout her article is the Fables series, a retelling of classic fairy tales that bring different characters of different stories together in a modern setting. She claims that through the graphic novels visuals, we get a unique feel for the writers

twists on classic characters that shatters our original perceptions of them, (p. 6). She also states that if the Fables series consisted of written words and not images, we would not be able to shed our original perceptions as we read, (p. 6). It is clear that Kukkonen fully supports the use of comic books in literacy and learning and find the concept of transmedial narratology important for education. Silke Horstkotte and Nancy Pedri focus on the idea of focalization, or, the filtering of a story through a consciousness prior to or embedded within its narratorial mediation, (p.1). Because of the blended mode nature of the graphic novel, focalization occurs when one reads it, rather than the reader having to fit the text into their consciousness after they absorb it. The authors examine three different comic books and the types of focalization that are presented in each: Persepolis, Maus, and Watchmen, all very popular and well written graphic novels in their own right. Firstly, in Persepolis, the authors of the article notice the feeling of confusion that is well evoked through visuals and text, (p. 4). Focalization is noted in the graphic novel, but it is not obvious at what point the filtering occurs. There is also much symbolism in the comic, with visual cues and metaphors being strongly present. Maus, a biography of a Holocaust survivor given life through comics, actually has two different narrators speaking through it: Art Spiegelman, the writer, and Spiegelmans father who orally related his life story to his son, (p. 6). Because of the input of two different authors, the graphic novel is interesting to digest as the reader goes about peeling apart different layers of story. The author also uses animal imagery, with different groups of people being represented as different animals, such as mice representing the Jews, although in some cases, one has to pay close attention to both the text and the images to get a sense of who each character is, (p. 6). The most advanced and complex storytelling format is depicted in Watchmen, the controversial and extremely popular graphic novel. One thing that is important to understanding this graphic novel is changing ones focalization to an alternative reality other than the reality we are grounded in, as it takes

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy place in a post-apocalyptic version of the 1980s, (p. 7). The authors discuss the idea of braiding

focalization, in which panels and sequences in graphic novels are tied together across pages and chapters, referring back to one another, adding more and more to the story as the braid is formed, (p.8). This process occurs in written novels, but as for graphic novels, this is an interesting and unique way to weave a story of murder, intrigue, nuclear debate, and the end of the world together into a coherent picture, (p. 9). We do not find out who the murderer and perpetrator of the apocalypse is until toward the very end of the story, and it makes it all the more interesting and enlightening to read. Dale Jacobs attacks issues that people have with comics head on, by stating that many famous comics and comic characters are seen as childhood icons and therefore are used as evidence that comics as a medium is only suited to the most juvenile forms of entertainment, (p.1). Jacobs states that it is important to move past this for comics to be studied correctly and claims that comics can have educational benefits and are on the same intellectual level as real books. However, the main focus of his article is autobiographical comics, or, comics written about the authors life by the author, which take up part of the alternative and underground industry of comics which have existed since the 1960s. He uses Joe Matts Peepshow as his main example. Jacobs, like previously mentioned authors claims that the mixing of visual and text media is important and revolutionary, and describes comics as comix meaning that the modes are co-mixing with one another to create meaning, (p. 3). He provides some interesting insight into autobiographical comics, culminating with the title of his study: Peepshow. In a sense, readers are peeping in at Matts life, unhindered and uncensored but unknown, creating a very interesting dynamic between the author and his readership, (p. 10). Finally, James Carter is a teacher arguing for the teaching of comic books in the classroom and their many benefits. Like other authors he mentions multimodality and the changing of literacy from textbased to visual as one of the contributing factors of his argument. He directly includes suggestions to teachers as to how to include comic books in the classroom, along with what types of comics to use with different groups of students. For example, he approves the use of Japanese comics for teenage girls, or

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy shoujo manga, in the classroom as they deal with issues that concern them in their lives such as depression, boy troubles, the struggle of growing up, and the pressure of the future and ones family, (p. 50). He also recommends comics that deal with topics that are already being covers and wholeheartedly recommends Maus to supplement learning about the horrors of the Holocaust as it allows students to

visualize the suffering and also presents a clear biographical account of a survivor and his family, (p. 51). Carter states that comics are already working their way into classrooms and applauds this, stating that it challenges old conventions about literacy that are slowly being eroded away as society advances anyway, (p. 52). Considering that this author is writing back in 2007 and discussing multimodality and multiliteracies, two relatively new topics in the study of teaching and learning, he is quite ahead of the game and seems to predict the need for change in the teaching field in the present. To conclude, according to author Carey Jewitt, the teaching of English is becoming multimodal, with many different types of modes such as text, video, images, and sound being equally important, and multiliterary as more students move toward visual and hands-on learning. Graphic novels fit perfectly in with the concept of multimodality and multiliteracies. Including them in the classroom is important, as is encouraging readership on their own. Those that talk down about comics as if they are somehow inferior to print literature require a serious wakeup call as comics are not simply mindless entertainment geared toward children or immature adults, but they are stories constructed elaborately using different forms of text and imagery designed to tell a new version of story, provide an interesting educational experience, tell a true to life story in a unique way, and share the fears, hopes, and dreams of the author just as brilliantly as the written word.

Comics, Multimodality, and Multiliteracy References

Carter, James Bucky (2007). Transforming English with Graphic Novels: Moving Toward our Optimus Prime, English Journal, Vol. 97, No.2. Horstkotte, Silke and Nancy Pedri (2011). Focalization in the Graphic Narrative, Narrative, Vol. 19, No. 3. Jacobs, Dale (2008). Multimodal Constructions of Self: Autobiographical Comics and the Case of Joe Matts Peepshow, Biography, Vol. 31, No. 1. Jewitt, Carey (2008). Multimodality and Literacy in School Classrooms, Review of Research in Education, Vol. 32. Kukkonen, Karin (2011). Comics as a Test Case for Transmedial Narratology, SubStance, Vol. 40, No.1.