If you’re into films, you can’t help but be aware of the large number of graphic novels that Hollywood is transferring to the big screen.  Highlights for me would include 300, The Dark Knight and – of course – Watchmen.

As someone who ascribes their intellectual development unashamedly to reading comics as a boy, I think this is great.  I hated school and textbooks of every sort.  It wasn’t until 2000AD came long that I actually wanted to read something, anything!  Such ‘comics’ taught me to reflect on adult themes, developed my vocabulary and imagination, stretched me emotionally, and served as a bridge to book reading.

In recent times I’ve detected a drift towards the use of graphics and the graphic novel to express increasingly high-concept material, stuff that is well beyond the traditional super-hero type themes some might expect.   Here are a few examples I can personally recommend.

The For Beginners series – “Every book in the series serves one purpose: to present to the reader in a straightforward, accessible manner the works of great thinkers and subjects alike. With subjects ranging from philosophy, to politics, to art and beyond, the For Beginners® series covers a range of familiar concepts in a humorous comic book-style, and takes a readily comprehensible approach that’s respective of the intelligence of its audience.”  The first few I read were on Darwin, Freud and Newton.

The Management Pocketbooks series – “Our learning aids are concise, jargon-free and highly visual, and employ accelerated learning techniques for fast and effective transfer of knowledge.”  I’m a big fan of these.  We use them in Sensei training packs.

Logicomix – “Covering a span of sixty years, the graphic novel Logicomix was inspired by the epic story of the quest for the Foundations of Mathematics.  This was a heroic intellectual adventure most of whose protagonists paid the price of knowledge with extreme personal suffering and even insanity. The book tells its tale in an engaging way, at the same time complex and accessible.”  I always counted Wittgenstein as one of my heroes.

And if you’re still stupid enough to think that comics are for the stupid, I dare you to read Scott McCloud’s Undertanding Comics: The Invisible Art.  In fact, I double dare you!

So go ahead and read them… if you think you’re smart enough.

PS Read how comicbook superheros are now used to fight disease…sort of.

Image credit: Demented Denizens.

Last 5 posts by Allen Baird, Partner

• No More Heroes? #2 - March 10th, 2010
• No More Heroes? #1 - March 3rd, 2010
• The Politics of Depression - February 22nd, 2010
• Class, Race and Sex In Education - February 15th, 2010
• How To Be Fearless - February 10th, 2010