Comic Studies and Young People’s Cultures: The Challenges of Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue

The papers in this forum were first presented as part of a round table entitled “Comic Studies and Research in the Cultures of Young People: Cross-Disciplinary Intersections, Tensions, and Challenges,” hosted by the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People (ARCYP) at the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at Brock University, held in St. Catharines, Ontario, on 27 May 2014.

This round table provided a distinctive opportunity for cross-disciplinary dialogue around the contentious relationship observed by Charles Hatfield, in the introduction to a 2006 issue of ImageText on “Comics and Childhood,” between comic studies and research related to young people’s cultures. In assembling the round table, organizers aimed to include scholars working across the fields of cultural studies, literary criticism, visual and media studies, and media literacy education. Founded in 2008 to include a membership of scholars from various disciplines as well as professionals and practitioners, ARCYP continues to promote the two foundational objectives of the organization: first, “[t]o promote the study of and research in the cultures and texts of young people, in Canada and internationally, across a range of disciplines, and to build an understanding of such scholarship that defines ‘young people,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘text’ broadly”; and second, “[t]o create interdisciplinary spaces to exchange research on the cultures and texts of young people; to create opportunities for collaboration” (“Constitution”). The executive of ARCYP sought to organize this round table both to create an interdisciplinary space for dialogue and collaboration and to address scholarship that engages broadly with the debates around the definitions of “young people,” “culture,” and “texts.” In addition, the organizers aimed to invite not only participants who present scholarship across disciplines but also scholars who move between the roles of researcher and practitioner.

The historical development of the comic strip as a serialized form is related closely to the development of other visual forms produced for young people, such as the picture book and the animated film. Like many contemporary comic writers, for instance, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (who are known for the Sandman comic series) work across various graphic formats in their work, including written and illustrated picture books such as The Wolves in the Walls as well as illustrated novels such as Coraline and The Graveyard Book. Moreover, comic writers such as Gaiman have participated actively in the adaptation of illustrated print texts into animated and live-action feature films. In this forum, Glenn Wilmott’s paper illustrates a historical tradition of cross-writing in which comic and ludic forms, particularly through the visual blurring of human and animal characteristics often associated with narratives in children’s literature, are common features in narratives for a general readership. Gaiman is exemplary of artists and writers who incorporate elements that often are associated with young people’s texts and cultures in texts for adult audiences, as well as pushing the boundaries of what may be considered narratives intended for young people in format and content.

Hybrid picture books that exemplify a mixture of formalistic and content conventions of both picture books and graphic novels provide the most recent example of this cross-writing tradition, emphasizing the close relationship between these two graphic narrative forms. Nevertheless, in an article entitled “On Comics-Style Picture Books and Picture-Bookish Comics,” Nathalie op de Beeck argues that, “while we may find much more than common ground between the two genres [comics and picture books]—indeed, formally one may be said to be a subset of the other—strong philosophical and ideological reasons persist for their separation” (468). Educators, publishers, and booksellers often are reluctant to blur the categories of what constitutes a picture book or a comic, due to assumptions about the cultural value of picture books as literary and artistic educational tools for young readers and about the lack of such value in the case of comic books.

Conversely, many scholars working in Comic Studies define themselves as distinct from work on picture books and young people’s texts in order to distinguish themselves from the often...