Lazyteacher

I came to graphic novels–like most people I know–through Maus. Spiegelman’s tale of his father’s experiences in the Holocaust was the first where the very strangeness of the medium added to the author’s idiosyncratic decisions (such as to depict all the Jews as mice and the Germans as pigs) resulted in a reading experience that you just couldn’t have in any other way. Comic books told stories, but they felt constrained within the genre. No one wonders if Spiderman will defeat Doc Oct eventually. Maus suggested that a graphic novel could tell a story in a powerful, effective way that used novelistic technniques but also took advantage of the comic panel to make rhetorical and artistic points.

Maus led to a number of graphic novels–some revelatory others disappointing. I’d head of Will Eisner’s The Contract with God Trilogy from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Published in 1978 it was a watershed moment for the medium. The first set of the trilogy (The Contract with God) is a set of 4 stories that revolve around life in mythical Dropsie Avenue, an Jewish immigrant neighborhood in NYC. The stories combine forceful, almost melodramatic illustrations with wry, cynical stories that dwell on human weakness and our inability to resist our impulses.

The title story involves a Russian Jew who escapes the pogroms of Tsarist Russia because of his piety and good works. He makes a “contract with God” in which he promises to be do good works in order for unspecified advantage. When he takes in a foundling girl and she later dies of leukemia, he rejects God in a heart-rending panel. Afterwards, he becomes a unscrupulous slumlord and tries to make as much money as possible. Strangely, this may be one of the more positive stories of the series. The other three trade in a much darker, much grimmer view of human nature. No one seems to have benign intentions and no one seems to be able to resist their gnawing Ids, clamoring for release.

I want to be able to say I could teach this in my classes. I don’t think I have the guts. Many of the stories in the first book of the series involve graphic sex and violence. Of course, I realize that I’ve taught books like 100 Years of Solitude which have more sexual content. But the shock of seeing even blue outlined forms having sex in haylofts might be too much. Still, the graphic novel has the potential to amaze. Students might accept Eisner’s graphic stories in a way they might dismiss or ignore if they were more traditional short stories. The writing and art has an undeniable vitality to it that attracts even while the stories themselves express deep reservations about human nature. At the end, I get the feeling that Eisner retains some affection for the grimy lives of humans, something close to pity, disgust, amusement, and wonder all mixed together.

The second book (”A Life Force”) is much tamer and a good US History class could use excerpts to illustrate ideas about life in Depression-era US. The stories even intersperse short articles about the Depression along with the narrative. The last (”Dropsie Avenue”) describes the machinations involved in the evolution of Dropsie Avenue froma tenement into a set of inexpensive homes. This feels less vital to me, but it does make interesting points about white flight and political power which would be harder (and less engaging) to describe traditionally.

In the end, I think having a set 5 books might be a good solution. Smaller groups (especially in a US history class) could read the book, present aspects of it, and even create their own panels or comic book pages that tell stories which illustrate issues in US History. A class in literature or creative writing could use the book to show (ala Understanding Comics) how a graphic novelist can use the conventions of the comic page to tell a story, set a mood, and suggest themes and symbols.

Eisner’s work is masterful and engaging; it would take an excellent teacher to exploit it, but the result could be well worth it.