Ralph Rodriguez, associate professor of American civilization
Comic books and graphic novels are enjoying a surge in popularity as Hollywood increasingly mines them for big-screen hits. From blockbusters like Iron Man, Wolverine, and Spider-Man to the widely praised film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, comics have made the leap from page to cinema. New fans are beginning to realize what comic buffs have known for decades – that comics and graphic novels go far beyond superheroes.
One of the largest collections of comics and comic art held by any American library is the Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection, housed in the John Hay Library. The collection contains approximately 60,000 comic books, graphic novels, and other materials related to comic art in popular culture. Historian Paul Buhle, senior lecturer in American civilization, has taught courses on comics since he joined the faculty in 1992, including the recent “Jewish Americans: Film and Comics,” that culminated in two student-curated exhibitions of comic-book art last fall. (Buhle also just published a new graphic novel, The Beats: A Graphic History, along with the acclaimed Harvey Pekar and Ed Piskor).
Some comics from Brown’s Ciaraldi Collection
Just don’t call comics a genre, warns Ralph Rodriguez, associate professor of American civilization. These books are a medium that encompasses many genres. Since 2006, Rodriguez has been teaching Brown students how to understand graphic novels in terms of history, criticism, and visual and textual aesthetics. His courses, “Guns and Graphics” and “Color Me Cool: A Survey of Contemporary Graphic Novels,” are wildly popular and attract students from a variety of disciplines.
Recently Today at Brown spoke with Rodriguez about graphic novels, his favorites, and teaching Brown students.
When and why did you start reading comics?
I started reading comics when I was around eight years old. My friend Brian Pascua and I would swap series. One of us would buy X-Men and the other Fantastic Four. We would go to the local 7-11 and pick up the latest issues and hang out in each other's company reading. We would, of course, interrupt each other when we came across something exciting. I miss that boyish delight in reading and hanging out. I think I try to replicate it by writing and reading with friends whenever I can now.
Are you a comics “fanboy”?
No, I wouldn't describe myself as a fanboy at all. I usually think of fanboys and fangals as those obsessed with the minutiae of comics, and that really doesn't interest me. I don't care if stories are inconsistent over a long story arc or if there are continuity mistakes in costume and the like. It reminds me of the Richard Pryor skit about how his father would read the boxing almanac and hang out around the barbershop waiting for someone to make a mistake about boxing history. Moreover, I don't follow superhero comics that closely, and that's where the fanboys feel most at home.
What is your favorite graphic novel and/or series?
My favorites change over time. Right now I really enjoy reading and re-reading Alison Bechdel’s work, especially Fun Home. I buy everything Jason does. His stories can be tragic, but they are always endearing. I teach his Hey, Wait … regularly. Adrian Tomine’s collected volumes, Summer Blonde and Sleepwalk, which originally appeared in his serialized Optic Nerve, are wonders of storytelling. I also like the magical quality of Shaun Tan’s work, which you have to look for in the children's section of bookstores.
Tell us about your courses and what students take away.
I don’t assume that students have any knowledge of graphic novels coming into the course. I always start with Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, which is a graphic novel about graphic novels. It shows how the medium works at the form level, visual level, and stylistic level, and students learn to be incredibly close readers of texts. The course usually includes one superhero book – even though I’m not that excited about it, I think they need to know about it because it’s a dominant way folks become interested in comics. I start around 1985 with the wave of graphic novels [around the time that Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the Watchmen series, and the Dark Knight Returns were all published] that brought an unprecedented number of readers of prose fiction to the medium. Students come away from the course with a sense of the various genres that fall within the medium of comics.
Not so much a question, but congratulations on winning the William G. McLoughlin Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching! Speech! Speech!
I am excited and honored to have received it. The students here are an energizing bunch. Being an energetic person myself, I feed on other people’s verve. Plus, I only teach subjects that genuinely excite me, and I suspect that comes through in my lectures and in the discussions I facilitate in seminars.
I’m looking to grow in the classroom just as much as students are, so I try to set up a classroom dynamic that privileges a genuine exchange of ideas. Moreover, I value students who can push themselves and their classmates in a way that leads to real growth, an examination of one’s values, beliefs, and ideas. The students also push me, and I like that.