A different method of telling the Holocaust story

[Big Don]

Assuming it is presented factually, I don't have a problem with it.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

I first learned about Ceasar through comics and like others Shakespeare.
So I can see the intent and perhaps someone learning from a comic.
From watching the comic it looks as if it for age 5 and I think the ugliness of the Holocaust seems down graded. Though learning from a comic has merit, seeing it in real time in documentary shows the horrors that a person can grasp the reality of. It would be IMO to use the comic as a supplement to documentary. When I was in school we had actual Concentration camp survivors tell their story and it had more of an impact than any comic I could have read.

 

[Xue Sheng]

For me, it is a concern with level of intellectual maturity of those targeted by this medium, much more than it is a matter of the format of the information.

That's the whole thing right there the "level of intellectual maturity of those targeted by this medium".

I must apologize I have tried several times to open the OP video link but I cannot neither at my office or at home so I am not sure of the age group they are targeting. If it is teenagers then if you give them a comic book and they actually read it that is a good thing but it is certainly not enough. But then teenagers being teenagers (and surprisingly enough they are not all the same everywhere) if they are like those in the US they may be entirely put off by a text book but not a comic book and not educational films so it is possible that this is what they need to do to actually get them to read about it but I do fully agree that they need to get a more serious message across after the introduction.

However if they are targeting younger readers a comic book is just fine and the other stuff can come later when they have more of a capacity to understand exactly what they are looking at.

As to the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel... to be honest I am not sure there really is a difference beyond the number of pages. But that is in my mind and we already know I am a bit crazy, remember I hit trees for fun, so I could be wrong

 

[Empty Hands]

But no matter how well written the comic, I don't think it will enough by itself.

'

I don't think anything is enough, by itself. Newsreels and pictures bring a certain sort of understanding, but even they don't hit you in areas that written accounts of the survivors (like Primo Levi's The Drowned and the Saved) can. Yet, even those accounts don't have the immediacy and reality of the pictures. Certainly several types of media will be necessary to get the full picture.

 

[Doc_Jude]

I agree that the medium shouldn't be a problem here. I think the offense is coming from the perception of older adults that comic books are for kids, and are intrinsically less serious or important as an artistic medium. I would disagree on both counts. Comic books are mainly marketed to young men these days, and anyone that doubts the power or pathos that the medium can generate should read Maus and get back to me.

You beat me to it!!!

http://www.carr.org/jl/maus3.jpg

Hell, look at "V for Vendetta". Comics are a medium, that's all.

 

[aedrasteia]

Thanks Emptyhands and DJ!

Maus is the gold standard. A friend is a middle school teacher and didn't know how to reach her students who were acceptable readers (skill level) but mostly bored - or thought they were.

She had never heard of 'graphic fiction' - thought comics were for losers. I asked her to consider teaching 'Maus' _first_ and then 'Diary of Anne Frank'. She was stunned by the reaction, her students were surprised to learn there was anything like Maus and passed it to friends outside of class. Anne Frank generated so much discussion and conversation. And they wanted to read more. Same thing for LOTR. the movies got them going and then willing to read the books and discuss them and even argue about them.

Now she calls Maus a 'gateway' book, especially for borderline readers. The desire to learn 'what happens next...' gets them to push through the difficult words, use a dictionary. look things up. discover these intense stories.

She thinks there should be high quality graphic novels for everything kids need to read.

Anybody read 'Persopolis' or see the animated film??

Its about a girl growing up in Iran - its very good. I gave it to my nephew and his girlfriend when they said they were confused about Iraq/Iran (thought they were the same).

teach all the history, not just the easy or 'noble' parts. Complex and contradictory are what humans do best.

A

 

[Ping898]

it is just another medium to tell the story...I am all for whatever medium people want to use as long as it is an honest accounting of what occured...