I missed this last month, but Anthony Browne was named children’s laureate recently. Most of you with children, and possibly some without, will recognise his cartoonesque artwork; the surrealist detailing; the near photorealism, the clever tricks in the backgrounds and the touch of sadness and melancholy that runs throughout his work.
And whilst it may not be comics, I think it’s worth looking at this quote:
“‘I hope to encourage more children to discover and love reading, but I want to focus particularly on the appreciation of picture books, and the reading of both pictures and words. Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader’s imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book.’”
“The reading of both pictures and words…. a tantalising gap between the pictures and words” – now that’s certainly not too far from a description of comics.
It only goes to illustrate the fact that there’s more and more blurring of the edges between children’s picture books and strict comics these days. Just have a look at Shaun Tan’s beautiful and expressive work for an example. The Arrival is definitely comics, albeit completely wordless but what of his children’s picture books? They have text outside the pictures which in theory makes them not quite comics. But Kyle Baker’s excellent Why I Hate Saturn does exactly the same thing but I’d definitely call it a graphic novel.
I suppose the important thing is that, no matter how we choose to define them, they’re all works of literature, all books of one form or other. And getting children reading, whether it’s picture books, comics or books, is something we should all applaud. And Anthony Browne’s work is a marvellous introduction to a wonderful world of reading.
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