James Bucky Carter is one of the most influential people marrying the wealth of comics potential with the classroom. An assistant professor of English education at the University of Texas at El Paso, he has studied comics and pop culture for years and has promoted comics’ use in building literacy (in fact, he wrote a book called Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels). Here, he discusses his history as a comics fan.

Question: Can “non-educational” comics and graphic novels actually teach anything?

I haven't had a chance to pick up the new Unknown Soldier series by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli, but I'm eager to pick up the just-released collection, Unknown Soldier: Haunted House.  I came across this nice piece about it in The New York Times and immediately fell in love with the book, sight unseen. A comic series that takes on the entire scope of the political situation in Uganda is not only fascinating; when it's done right, as it sounds like it is, it deserves full support. Tucked away in the article is an interesting sales figure for the monthly book (about 7,500 copies of the latest monthly issue). Dysart is quoted as saying, "Whether we can fully compete in a world of superheroes, I don't know. The medium, sadly, has a limited readership. We'll see."

Since I’m not a comic-book historian, or someone who religiously follows every industry trend and title, you could not consider me an authority. I have been referred to as an advocate for kids and comics, as well as comics in the classrooms. Yes, I do what I can, but I am not the expert in the business—though I know my way around both the comics and educational arenas.

Thanks to Diamond's John Shableski for passing this link on to me. It's from Chicago Tribune columnist Julia Keller, who had the audacity to write an article praising some graphic novels and received a barrage of reader responses as a result ("How dare you?" is how Julia sums up their letters). Julia defends her choice (while recommending Tim Hamilton's excellent new adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451), but I have to say, she does so rather feebly ("I understood the umbrage," she wrote. "Still do, in fact..."; she tellingly entitles her column "My secret shame"). Come on, Julia; stand up and be proud. Do we really have to be ashamed of reading graphic novels, comics, manga, and the like? Are we that beholden to the literary snobs that we can only talk about the format with our heads hung low, flaggelating ourselves over something we claim to like and (the horror!) enjoy?