Yes, there are still people in this day and age who chuckle at the notion that comics stimulate the mind. The truth is: reading a comic not only stimulates our intuition and intellect, it does it in a way other storytelling media such as novels and films do not.
Reading text primarily utilizes the left side of the brain, while the right side is dominant during visual processing. Comics use a combination of words and pictures to tell a story or convey information, encouraging the two thought hemispheres to work together and be in sync. This interaction facilitates a union of our masculine and feminine aspects, which is key to raising human consciousness.
So why is there such a stigma surrounding comics? Where does this misconception that they are somehow a threat to literacy come from?
Let us start with Frederic Wertham, a psychiatrist whose 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent highlighted violence and subversive messaging found in comic books of that period, and blamed them for negative societal trends such as juvenile delinquency. This led to a senate hearing and subsequent witchhunt culminating in the formation of the Comics Code Authority, an organization which would regulate the content found in mainstream American comics for the next half-century to ensure it was “kid-friendly”.
I have long suspected this was the beginning of a decades-long Operation Mockingbird campaign to suppress the comics medium’s potential by infantilizing a form of expression that is one of the greatest examples of the creative cognitive ability humans possess.
Throughout human history, from ancient cave paintings to Sumerian clay tablets, combining words and pictures to communicate has been as natural to intelligent civilized societies as breathing. Indeed, literati of today should not need reminding that the original written form of many languages were pictorial in basis. And up to the middle of the 20th century, it was considered normal for books, including novels, to be illustrated. Was it a coincidence that after Operation Mockingbird began around 1950, the publishing world shifted to a paradigm that increasingly phased out illustrations from books?
The ability to process text and visuals synchronously is something all humans are born with. Children especially do it effortlessly. Like with any skill, however, it can be lost if not practiced consistently. As a creator, I experienced this myself when I went from producing Twilight Lady, a graphic novel I wrote and illustrated, to several consecutive projects where I would write the script and someone else would do the artwork. Though I enjoyed the collaborative experience, over time I began to miss that harmonious sensation of sheer creative joy any cartoonist busily expressing by combining words and pictures knows and can instantly recognize.
I rediscovered that joy, like an old friendship rekindled, when I started work on Lyra Nebula, a webtoon I am both writing and drawing.
There appears to be a trend among today’s educators to be more open to children reading comics. This is a good thing, after decades of programmed resistance. No doubt some of the more indoctrinated adults will bemoan the death of literacy due to this trend, not realizing that if not for comics, many of these children would not be reading at all. I hope they grow up in a world where this kind of stigma is a faint memory and do not give up their love for illustrated stories upon reaching adulthood, as tended to happen with the majority of previous generations.
I am not saying every book has to contain a graphic element. Just that in a healthy, less indoctrinated society books combining text and visuals would be the norm, rather than a marginalized section of our local library or bookstore. Why do labels such as “comics” or “graphic novels” even exist? So that any publication committing the cardinal sin of including lots of pictures would be shunted to a corner of the room. Separation and segregation has always been a tactic of manipulators. Separation of the left and right sides of our brain, the masculine and feminine aspects of our consciousness. Segregation and isolation of any form of resistance to this agenda. It is right out of their playbook.
A society of people orientated towards only visuals or text, but not the marriage of both, is easier to keep in check. The indoctrinated tend to believe higher learning and advancement is dependent on the ability of present and future generations to absorb and digest vast amounts of text and data. I argue that our intellectual ceiling will never evolve if we do not venture beyond this misguided principle. The best textbooks and manuals combine words and graphics seamlessly and effectively. The reduction of this format the higher one advances in so-called education was always part of a program intended to stunt our growth, not advance it.
As you may have noticed, I’m not talking about “just” comics anymore. But in any case, the term “comic” was something they came up with. There is a practical aspect to this that goes beyond “funny pages” (another term made up by them). It is an issue vital to the very future of human communication and evolution.