ITEM #1: So where were we?
Two installments ago I said I would offer a brief look at how I developed my course in comic book literature at the University of Maryland. Back during my alma mater’s 30th anniversary celebration, I was asked by a professor of mine if I might want to try my hand at teaching. The notion of returning to the college where I spent some wonderful years and seeing it from the other side of the desk was too exciting an opportunity to pass up. There was, however, one problem: I didn't feel confident enough to tackle one of the core “survey” courses in, say, early American literature or Victorian novels. But there was a form of literature I did know intimately, and imagine my surprise when I was met with this reply: “Okay. Teach a course in that then.”
Wow. Carte blanche not only to teach a course in comics but to build it from scratch. Where do I begin? There was actually very little trepidation about the process, as I had composed the reading list for a possible comic course in my head long before that fateful day. There were a number of other comic based college courses across the country, and a lot more of them now, but I avoided looking up any of their syllabi until I had written my own. After the fact, I discovered many of them tended to focus on comics as an art subject rather than a literary one, but that’s changed a lot today.
The course would need an introductory textbook of sorts, something to underscore the value of the medium and instruct newcomers. Most of my students, strangely enough, would be complete strangers to comics, as today’s American youth spends most of their time with online and video based entertainment, in the language of comics. It would have to establish a common ground for future discussion and provide us with the vocabulary we would need to deconstruct and analyze the readings for the rest of the semester. There was only one choice for me, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. While it was an excellent selection for a foundational text, I intended that it should not be taken at face value. McCloud makes a few murky assertions, as he himself admits, so I expected we would not only rely on McCloud but dare to question him as well.
Next time, I’ll tell you about some of the other choices on that first reading list, and where things went from there.
ITEM #2: In other news, we’ve added some items in the museum collection from the Nyoka the Jungle Girl series published by Fawcett, including original photographs and paste-ups used in the production of the comic book covers. While it seems like just another jungle themed Golden/Atom Age series, it’s worth noting that Nyoka has some pop culture cred since she was first created by none other than Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs. Appearing first in a 1929 short story and then in a 1932 novel titled The Jungle Girl, Nyoka went on to movie and comic book fame...of a sort. And now she’s here at GEM.
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Don’t forget to
Visit Geppi’s Entertainment Museum online at www.geppismuseum.com
or in person at
301 W. Camden St.
Baltimore, MD 21201
(410) 625-7060
