MAUS
© Penguin Books Ltd.
Picture Pages
By: Nadia OxfordDate: Thursday, June 14, 2007
Comics and manga lend all kinds of memories and stereotypes. Who can forget old Disney after-school specials where the good-for-nothing class troublemaker sneaks a Batman comic in the pages of his history textbook? (Ironically, this is also a preferred storyline in a lot of Archie comics.) How about the illiterate drop-out character who doesn't know Tom Joad from the Joker?
All kinds of interesting descriptors are slung at comic/manga collections: Dirt, kindling, toilet paper, Kleenex, for God's sake put that trash down and do your homework, harrumph harrumph.
Yet, comics and manga have proven themselves to be one of the most effective means of storytelling ever employed. Unfortunately, American institutions measure intelligent literature by the number of words squeezed onto a page. The smaller the font, the better. Even though skilled manga-ka know there is a delicate balance between words and pictures, "picture books" are generally regarded as kid's stuff outside Japan. It's true children are attracted to drawings (especially since pictures can help kids decipher a book's story if they're having trouble with the words), but should a medium be penalized because it's able to hold a child's attention?
Comic artists and manga-ka have used their fields to write and draw powerful autobiographies of catastrophic life events. Given the passive-aggressive attitude towards manga, is this a disrespectful thing to do? Does turning a small apocalypse into a comic book cheapen the tragedy? Definitely not. It's already been proven manga and American comics are capable of delivering a roundhouse punch to a reader's emotions; if other such attempts could reach the mainstream public, it could go a long way to educating people not only about the power of art, but about humanity's direction as well.
I was recently sent the Barefoot Gen series, which is currently being published and translated by Last Gasp of San Francisco. The bombing of Hiroshima doesn't work its way into American culture very often, and in certain situations, talking about the event is still taboo in Japan. Barefoot Gen, however, goes on the front lines and tells a story of survival from the viewpoint of an affected boy. It's a naked tale, very stark and unapologetic. It's something every human being should read before they take a standpoint on nuclear weapons. It is, in a word, real.
And yet, it's dismissed as kid's stuff at first glance. Nothing is further from the truth of course, but it's almost as if we're scared to mix our education and entertainment. If we want to learn about the power of Little Boy, we're encouraged to consult a documentary or library book. If we want big noises and nuclear explosions, we can go to a movie theatre. In the meantime, the medium that can bring us closest to the event without actually experiencing it remains unread.
Comics are not subject to as much censorship as movies--for now, at least. Artists are free to express themselves and give vivid detail to their characters' surroundings. At the same time, a comic book or manga still has to tell a story, so a cast is introduced, a conflict arises and is solved. Readers become attached to the protagonist, who is fleshed out further thanks to the accompanying artwork. It's one thing to read about a half-cooked bombing victim dragging his intestines across the jagged ruins of a building; it's quite another to actually see him and gauge the main character's horror for yourself.
It's not really to say autobiographical comics and manga should take the place of textbooks, but neither should they be ruled out as candidates for book reports, presentations, etc. Of course, age appropriateness is a valid concern; when is a kid old enough to learn about Hiroshima or the Holocaust? When is he old enough to graduate from statistics to actual accounts of survival, as depicted by Barefoot Gen, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms or Maus? It seems strange, but hearing about one person's experiences can be far more jarring than reading a neutral-toned body count in the morning paper. Reading the right manga or comic at an impressionable time can change your life.
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