ECKERD COLLEGE NEWS: Comic Book Class is a Serious Study
Season 2, Episode 1136, Sep 15, 06:55 PM
Share
Subscribe
In this episode of ECKERD COLLEGE NEWS, we share the stories, successes and research at Eckerd College. Professor of Literature and Comparative Literature Jared Stark Ph.D., (left) has taught the Serious Comics course for two decades. Photos by Penh Alicandro ’22
Here is a preview of Tom Zucco's article on the class.
The title of the course sounds like a classic oxymoron: Serious Comics. But it’s a perfect description of an Eckerd College Autumn Term course where students study serious cartooning, a popular but often overlooked art form where storytelling—and the complex relationship between words and images—is more valued than getting a laugh.
The course has been taught for more than two decades by Jared Stark, Ph.D., professor of literature and comparative literature at Eckerd. He is the author of three books, including his latest, A Death of One’s Own: Literature, Law and the Right to Die (Northwestern University Press, 2018). Among the serious comics that the course examines are ones that focus on the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Holocaust. Even the textbook Stark uses for the course, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, is itself a comic book.
“How can comics that have traditionally been a form of entertainment or escape bear the weight of a painful personal history?” Stark asks. “Part of the challenge of giving voice to such a difficult history is that you need to find a new vocabulary to do that. If the story hasn’t been told before, the vocabulary may not yet exist. Comic artists are particularly good at transforming comics to make it possible to tell previously silenced stories in a new form.”
**LEARN MORE: https://www.eckerd.edu/news/blog/autumn-term-comics/
#eckerdcollege #stpete #stpetefl #tampabay #radio #radiostpete
#universitynews #nanettewiser
Here is a preview of Tom Zucco's article on the class.
The title of the course sounds like a classic oxymoron: Serious Comics. But it’s a perfect description of an Eckerd College Autumn Term course where students study serious cartooning, a popular but often overlooked art form where storytelling—and the complex relationship between words and images—is more valued than getting a laugh.
The course has been taught for more than two decades by Jared Stark, Ph.D., professor of literature and comparative literature at Eckerd. He is the author of three books, including his latest, A Death of One’s Own: Literature, Law and the Right to Die (Northwestern University Press, 2018). Among the serious comics that the course examines are ones that focus on the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Holocaust. Even the textbook Stark uses for the course, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, is itself a comic book.
“How can comics that have traditionally been a form of entertainment or escape bear the weight of a painful personal history?” Stark asks. “Part of the challenge of giving voice to such a difficult history is that you need to find a new vocabulary to do that. If the story hasn’t been told before, the vocabulary may not yet exist. Comic artists are particularly good at transforming comics to make it possible to tell previously silenced stories in a new form.”
**LEARN MORE: https://www.eckerd.edu/news/blog/autumn-term-comics/
#eckerdcollege #stpete #stpetefl #tampabay #radio #radiostpete
#universitynews #nanettewiser