graphic novels and comics

I have been interested in this area for ages and with the lastest flurry of presentations at conferences such as VATE and IFTE, I have begin a more thorough investigation - in fact I am buying up graphics novels at a steady pace - or at least tagging the ones I like for later purchase (when I can find some money). Our school librarian has some interest but, like me, has no money.

I have found some interesting sites for this kind of stuff. All of these contain resources and rationales for teaching comics in primary and secondary education. The most interesting is teachingcomics.org the homepage of the National Association of Comics Art Educators. Check out the 'exercises' page for some great ideas for the classroom. As a teacher of english language and writing, I found that these ideas are very relevant to writing classes as well as art type classes. In fact I presently do many of the same things in my writing classes. I also found the 'syllabi' pages excellent for ideas about developing my own 'new media' type course. I had not previously considered graphic novels and comics as a type of 'new media' (whatever that is anyway), but the idea fits comfortably into my own idea of non-traditional, or non-canonical text types. There is a huge amount of ezines and ecomics all over the place - flash and otherwise - that will make interesting food for thought in any course about new media.

Other good information at Scott McCloud's website, author of Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.

Gene Yang (math teacher and cartoonist) has a website devoted to Comics in Education. He is doing a masters on using comics in education. His final project is a crack up! I wonder if Abr or Pne would be interested in this stuff?

Anyway, moving right on ...