The World's Potent

by John A. Lent
Philadelphia, USA

It's a long, often bitter controversy--the debate about comics for educational purposes.

Education and psychology journals of the Depression/World War II generation waged the battle in the United States-with even some support for their use; by the late 1940s and 1950s, the British popular press and academic journals got into the fray.

By now, the charges are will known. Comics cause violent and immoral behavior in children; they harm educational standards, promoting colloquial and substandard language use and spelling; they keep young people away from the classics in literature by offering shortcuts through Classics Illustrated.

Individuals such as Fredric Wertham in the United States and George Pumphrey in England made their careers on "research findings" about comics' harmful effects-findings that under more rational conditions could not have passed muster as an undergraduate term paper.

Some of the controversy has died down as today's Werthams and Pumphreys have found new targets in television and popular music lyrics and as more and more professional people come to the defense of comics. Other reasons may also account for the "letting-up-on-the-comics" trend. With the high literacy and illiteracy rates in the United States and elsewhere in the world, any reading-even of comics-is an achievement for many people. Another factor that has helped establish comics as an educational tool is the abundance of evidence suggesting that the medium has teaching potential.

This evidence has come from many parts of the world, including the Third World, after comics' successful use for developmental purposes during the past generation.

For a number of years now, educational projects have been built around comic books. A couple in the United States bear mentioning. Leonard Rifas' EduComics, based in Seattle, has issued a series of comic books since the early 1970s, designed to destroy myths surrounding war, use of nuclear energy, and food shortages. The titles suggest Rifas' concerns: "Energy Comics," "Food Comics," "Food First," "An Army of Principles," "All-Atomic Comics," "Corporate Crime Comics," "Itchy Planet," and "Real War." The number of copies sold compared to the modest operation Rifas handles is staggering.

Another successful campaign has been that of Cartoonist Phil Yeh's "Cartoonists Across America and the World." Yeh's concern is the growing illiteracy; his method is to seek audience participation in efforts to teach the importance of literacy. With other cartoonists, Yeh paints murals promoting literacy in shopping centers, museums, and other public places throughout North America. The murals are then used as billboards. The campaign is built around a series of comic books, "Frank the Unicorn," and "Penguin and Pencilguin," used to get young people to read. In 1990, Yeh took his campaign abroad, using a number of international cartoonist to paint a mural in Budapest, Hungary. WittyWorld has co-sponsored literacy events with Cartoonist Across America and the World.

In other parts of the world, comics have been very popular as a teaching resource. In Mexico, they have been used in bilingual courses, and throughout Asia, teachers use comics as the first step in literacy campaigns. Malaysia's Creative Enterprises, through its Bambino comic magazine, promoted poetry, moral lessons, and stories of legendary Maly warriors; Thailand's Department of Non-Formal Education published comics designed to teach rural people everything from breast feeding to workers' rights. The same government department in Nepal developed comic books to teach reading, writing, and math, using stories that were dramatic, provocative, and able to discuss serious social issues.

Japanese educational comics have had phenomenal success, starting with "Oishimbo" (Gourmet), a serialized cartoon published as a book in 1984. Each of its 15 volumes sold more than one million copies. The Hong Kong-based Asiaweek (May 6,1988) said Oishimbo is a "story of a lazy newspaper reported who transforms himself, Superman-like, into a gourmet chef who offers tips on cooking and sometimes pontificates on related issues, such as the hazards of artificial flavoring." One of the most popular educational comic book has been The Japanese Economy for Beginners, A four-volume work explaining the country's complex economic system. Each of the first three volumes almost immediately sold 1.5 million copies. An English-language version was published in the U.S. The Japanese government picked up on the idea as its Economic Planning Agency issued a comic book explaining the 1987 White Paper on the Economy.

For years, the Chinese government issued serial picture books for educational and propaganda purposes. In Angola in the 1970s, a comic book was designed and distributed by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola with the intent of teaching illiterate masses the meaning of independence and the path to it. One of India's main comics editors, Anant Pai, started his own magazines when it struck him that foreign comics were damaging Indian children. Appalled at young people's ignorance of Indian history, mythology, and folklore, he combined a simple format, Indian classics, and historical events in his comics, which by 1984, included 300 titles. His comics helped with national integration and provided a substitute for storytelling grandparents displaced in the dissolution of the family system.

Of course, there are other examples of comics used for teaching. It does not stretch the point to say that social conscientization comics are teachers-comics such as Keiji Nakazawa's "Barefoot Gen," and autobiographical treatment of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, or Art Spiegelman's "Maus," the story of the author's father and his dreadful experience at Auschwitz.

There are other examples of comics used for developmental purposes. In Peru, a book of line drawings was distributed to illiterate and semi-literate peasants to promote immunization and family planning, while Pakistan's Aga Khan Central Health Board did comic books to encourage people to use iodized oil capsules for the prevention of goiter. Elsewhere, comic books carried health messages to rural Honduran children, explained a controversial government bill in Singapore, warned children about AIDS in Hong Kong, and pointed out the dangers of smoking in Malaysia.

In the Philippines, where "komiks" are considered the national book, they have been used in campaigns about family planning, the Green Revolution, the exodus to the cities, pollution, drug taking, alcoholism, stereotypes of women, and nuclear power.

Obviously, we are not talking about comics as an educational tool in the classroom alone. That is important, but so are the educational potentials of comics in other spheres-in building morals, social concerns, awareness, and empathy. Thus, inside and outside the classroom, comics can be a potent teacher and enough documentation exists to show that they have been. WittyWorld has been committed to similar educational and developmental uses of the comic art, participating in educational workshops and in literacy and feed the children campaigns.