“If you want to make money, go into middle-grade comics.” That was the advice given to the comics illustrators in my MFA Illustration class. It is true. If you walk through Barnes & Nobles you will see the comic/graphic novel section stuffed with a million different middle school level comics across all genres. Some are new stories, some are versions of books already printed. The art styles tend to look similar too—publishing houses tend to lean toward a post-2010s CalArts animation style. They are there because they sell incredibly well and the demand for new material, as well as the hope to make the next NYT Best Seller, has publishers making deals with all kinds of artists. On the subway, I see kids and teens reading books with more illustrations, soft and hard-cover comics, manga, and graphic novels. Most of them by different authors. I can hear my high school english teachers shrieking in horror at the onslaught of these picture/text things. Unfortunately for my high school english teachers, I am here to defend comics.

The importance of comics as a part of our children’s reading is widely debated. As of 2025, the USA is struggling to teach it’s children to read. Both functionally and critically. We were struggling long before now, but since the pandemic and the rise of oppressive book banning, folks are looking for something to blame. A wicked witch. I personally believe it is no coincidence that many of the books on banned booklists are comics: Maus, This One Summer, and Genderqueer, to name a few. To me, that signifies their importance as well as their effectiveness at discussing difficult and complicated topics.

A good question to ask here would be, what is the point of reading? Or better, what is the point of a story? Well, the point of reading in my mind is to be able to understand several sides of a complex issues, learning about other people and cultures, and coming up with creative solutions to problems. The hope is by reading these stories and deconstructing these puzzles, an individual will learn to read something they do not understand, know how to look up credible information to learn about it, learn it, and then keep reading. In a country that relies on voting and weighing needs and options through discussion and debate, that ability is critical. Unfortunately, it has been bastardized by easily accessible misinformation. So the additional goal is not purely to avoid getting misled, it is realize when you have been. Misinformation pokes at people’s fears and leads them down a bad path. To read well is to recognize your own emotions and stop yourself from succumbing to something extreme, or that the hand that is leading you down that path is itchy and you should turn back as soon as possible. To answer the second question, what is the point of stories, I think there are too many answers. For this essay I think a potential answer is that they are a way to teach empathy. To expand minds. The three comics I mentioned before would act as both teach and expand the world of a young person. They would learn about the gruesome reality of a holocaust (Maus), the hardships following a miscarriage as well as the fear of an unexpected pregnancy (This One Summer), and what is means to not fit into either gender (Genderqueer). For those who worry that it will be too intense, too scary, too much, all I can say is…so is the world. We do not need or want to traumatize our children, and for the most part I do not think these books are too extreme in graphics. I haven’t been unnerved by comics any more or less than I have by other books that were deemed “appropriate” because I do not believe we can control what a child is or isn’t disturbed by. I am not claiming that a 7-year-old should read Maus—no one is. Nor can I claim that assigning a 16-year-old to read Maus will make understanding Pride and Prejudice or the war in Gaza any easier, but I do argue the importance of allowing young readers to consume stories in multiple mediums. There is also an argument that comics about historical or societal conflict can teach children about it in a way that is far easier to digest than if it was in writing or film. Drawing the European Jewish victims of the Holocaust as mice acts as both a powerful symbol of vulnerability as well as an effective means of distancing the horrors being depicted just enough that the message of the story comes through. Animation works for the same reason, many difficult stories are told with animals in the place of humans or with child-like animation styles that both separate and relate, allowing the audience to enjoy and think without becoming too upset to do either. If a child is forced to read things they do not understand due to a lack of support or variety, then what is the point? If a child, in a visual age, is not taught visual literacy, then truly, what is the point?

In 8th or 9th grade I started reading The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. In a way, it was my Mount Everest. Stroud’s novels are for young readers but I did not know a lot of the words he used, especially the descriptive words. The words I didn’t know came up so often and held such significance that I tried writing them down to keep track so I could refer back to them later. Eventually I grew tired and stopped and tried desperately to look for context clues. It was really, really, hard. I did not have a poor education, but I do have learning disabilities, so though I was a hard enough worker to stay on top of things (and did very well in English), I struggled immensely at times. Doing my homework took a very long time. I often thought it was my fault for not knowing the answer already. I think many young readers feel this shame. I see it again and again when I work as a writing tutor. The students who tried their hardest to understand a reading assignment were often the ones who got stuck with a passage that hardly made any sense, or, was written in a Jane Austen-type of english that nowadays needs to be translated via footnotes. This fear and shame doesn’t spring up from nowhere. Children are aware of how important it is to read, to keep up with their peers. If they feel they are falling behind somehow, it is very easy for them to grow scared. I think offering alternatives could ease that worry. It could encourage young readers to engage in thoughtful conversations about what they read, and even inspire them to try books again, or approach them in a different way. I imagine it could even be substantial for teachers themselves to see how their students read comics—they might develop a further understanding of reading and learning styles from their students. It was actually a comic that inspired me to love reading, followed by such books as The Lightning Thief, and The Giver. There were times in college I fell out of love with reading but ultimately it is one of my biggest joys in life. Book or comic.

Now here comes another issue, do comics allow for our own visual interpretations? Especially for well-known or already printed stories like A Wrinkle In Time or The Lightning Thief. Let’s look at the Harry Potter books and movies as an example. Looking back on the Harry Potter Series and their movie counterparts, I find that I sometimes forget what things looked like in the film versus my own imagination. It goes without saying that when I read the books, I had a very different vision of the castle and the characters then how the movies did it. I caught up to the books half-way through the releases of the films and had both the experience of movie-before-book and book-before-movie. I also think the book illustrations by Mary GrandPré influenced my imagination to a certain degree. They were cartoony and spongy and goofy. Everything was a lot more whimsical compared to the candle-lit and grey sky vibes of the films. But as the story grew darker in the later books, which was also when I read beyond the films, the book illustrations (though wonderful) started to feel less appropriate. I was also older and less prone to influence. So the influence was there yes, but not all-encompassing. From my experience as an illustrator, I believe our own interpretations of things will always shine through, however, they need to be encouraged. A professor in grad school told us to draw famous characters from memory like SpongeBob or Mickey Mouse. The variations were many and each had a bit of our own styles in them. We had countless discussions about what makes a style your own. Most of the artists who came to speak had the same answer, it is yours if it came from you. Fan art communities online give new interpretations of comic and animated characters constantly, drawing them as different races, body types, as animals, in different styles, etc. Dungeons and Dragons has been used as a jumping off point for all sorts of creativity within fantasy. A comic does not stunt imagination, if anything I believe it stokes the flames. And should a student raise their hand and say, “Actually, when I read it I imagined these looked more like heavy teal curtains, not cerulean wispy curtains like in this drawing!” That opens the door to an important discussion about individual imagination, what the author may have intended and what the illustrator may have intended.

One thing to remember, and that I think comic artists and illustrators tend to understand more than fear-mongering/fear-monger-ed people on book ban committees, is that people see the same things very, very differently. I also think the term, “reading” can be expanded upon. Not everyone is going to graduate High School and frequent the local bookstore for the latest special edition copy of Jane Eyre. At the same time, there will always be people who prefer books to comics, comics to audiobooks, audiobooks to books, etc. And it goes beyond simple preference. Though a person may not have a diagnosable disability of any kind, they could find one easier to consume than the other, and therefore enjoy it more and learn just as much. There are also people who fight how hard it is to consume and do it anyway for the joy of the story—like I did with The Bartimaeus Trilogy. For those with diagnosed or self-diagnosed disabilities, it is an accessibility issue. But it goes both ways. Some young disabled readers may still need or reach for an audiobook over a comic. Or stick to the book, which is often the first option given. I know people who look at art and have very little ability to understand narrative art but enjoy abstract art or realism immensely. They look at manga styles and ask, “But why are her eyes so big?” but will look at a landscape or a large colorful mess of acrylic paints and say, “I could look at this for hours.” Which is perfectly fine, by the way. (And also raises an interesting discussion around the lack of abstraction in comics.) I think for many minds, words on a page are far more understandable than a painting. For some people, comics could get in the way. Attempting to force the students in the US education system to learn the same way is about as new as expired milk. I am not suggesting we replace the whole library with comics. Comics and audiobooks are becoming and should be a very vital part of learning to read and think critically—two skills that adults need in order to live full and safe lives.