Do you think comics are a children’s or adult genre/media?
I think
comics are medias/genres for both children and adult. I was thinking comics are
designed for only children, because if children read other texts like novel or
poem, they may have some problems to understand the meaning. However when
children read comics, they could understand the contents easily, because in the
comics there are helpable pictures, many visual features, and short sentence as
well. Those reasons were why I thought comics are childish and it is for only
children. But Harvey (n.d., as cited in Varnum & Gibbons, 2001) discusses
that both words and images are necessary for the completion of meaning, which
shows that both children and adult cannot get the exact meaning of comics
without images. Namely, pictures and images are the features of comics that it
only has compare the other medias/genres. As most of poem use short sentences,
comics have its own elements. Even to me, comics are much enjoyable because it
is much easier to understand or guess the meaning with images even if there are
any difficult words or expressions that I haven’t learnt. The comic
‘the adventures of Tintin’ also has own genre of age group. In the Michael
Farr’s writing, Herge (n.d., as cited in Farr, 1991) who is the author of “the
adventures of Tintin” explains that “Tintin” was aimed at all young people aged
from seven to seventy-seven. Therefore, I can say “comics” are for both
children’s and adult’s media.
Reference
Farr,
Michael. (1991). Introduction in Tintin: the complete companion (pp.8-9).
London: John Murray.
Varnum, R.
& Gibbons, C. (Eds.). (2001). Introduction. In The Language of Comics: word
and image (pp.ix-xix). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Hi Sodam, Thanks for the post. Please note that it is a bit short (approx 240 words). You should not count the question or the reference list as part of your word-count. Ok, you have developed an opinion and you have made a couple of references to the secondary texts (Farr and Varnum). An excellent point from your own experience reading comics outside of your primary language. The educational advantages of picture-cues to augment the language is very real - and one of the primary elements of children's comics. I don't necessarily agree with you about short sentences being easier for a child or ESOL reader to grapple with. The language in comics can be very contracted as the author tries to compress a lot of narrative and meaning into a short space. Keep an eye on your clarity of language (for example, I wasn't quite sure what you meant by 'As most of poem use short sentences, comics have its own elements') If you re-read your work before you post it, that will help. Ok, a good start.
ReplyDeleteYour insights are interesting and the conclusions you drew about different age groups was interesting, but some other examples when discussing such a broad subject may help to make your discussion more palpable, nice.
ReplyDelete