Why do I teach comics?

I don’t know, why don’t you just ask me? Because apparently

I fool [students] into acquiring a decent approximation of expertise by providing them with source material that they believe they can become expert in. They’ll happily read eight chapters from Understanding Comics and memorize the 70 odd bits of critical vocabulary contained therein, whereas if I asked them to do something similar with Ciceronian rhetoric their anxiety would preclude the possibility of them ever feeling like they could master the material.

Or so I say!

I take it most of you are already familiar with my work on the medium, but for those who aren’t, I’ll throw some links below the fold.

• American Born Chinese – Gene Luen Yang
• Blankets – Craig Thompson
• Fun Home – Alison Bechdel
• Ghost World – Daniel Clowes
• Kick-Ass (I) – Mark Millar
• Kick-Ass (II) – Mark Millar
• Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth – Warren Ellis
• 30 Days of Night – Steve Niles
• The Walking Dead (word-specific panels)
• The Walking Dead (picture-specific panels) – Robert Kirkman
• War is Boring – David Axe
• Watchmen (panel construction) (I) – Alan Moore
• Watchmen (panel construction) (II) – Alan Moore
• Watchmen (responsible film criticism) – Anthony Lane
• Watchmen (unfilmable film filmed) – Zak Snyder vs. Alan Moore
• Watchmen (students as murderers) – Alan Moore
• Watchmen (Dr. Manhattan as a figure of the reader) – Alan Moore