Let’s Learn Through Pictures

So here’s the thing… This week I read Bohemians: A Graphic History by Paul Buhle and David Berger. This was a very different kind of graphic story compared to the comics I have been reading lately. It details the Bohemian movement as a whole and some key components of what being Bohemian meant and what helped define it.

I had a very basic understanding of what I thought Bohemian was, because I have been a long time fan of the musical Rent, which was adapted from La Boheme. I have had the pleasure of being involved in multiple productions of Rent, as well as seeing the opera La Boheme. However, Bohemians gave me a deeper understanding of what the movement was throughout the ages. And the art was just lovely.

Something that initially stood out was the idea of “free love,” and how widely debated it was. What does that mean? Turns out, it meant many different things to people. Whether it was a woman’s right to deny her husband any sexual advances she wasn’t comfortable with, or just a way to define a mutual, positive relationship between people, or the right to be divorced or not be expected to get married at all. Unsurprisingly, there were protests to the idea since its true definition seemed so unclear.

The way that information is delivered in this graphic novel was interesting. At times it was very accessible, because the information was demonstrated in the drawings, but at other times it felt like there were too many words on the page. It’s like it wanted to be a textbook, but wanted to be “hip for the kids.” The paneling was really intriguing, because many of the words within the panels bled into others which gave it a really unique layout.

I think delivering information in this format could be beneficial to some. It isn’t just blocks of text, it’s a creative way to demonstrate knowledge that I could see being helpful to visual learners. It gives life to the information.

Bohemians is so different from anything I’ve read up until now, because it’s a lot more explicit than a comic book. Well-crafted comic books tend to show the action and the story is communicated by the issue as a whole. However, the panels and story in Bohemians is driven by the information. There’s a clear purpose and reason it’s being written and it isn’t subtle. Comics are driven by action, but this kind of graphic novel is driven by information and necessity. And there’s value in that, you know? Everyone learns differently. And it can be really amusing to read something that is very transparent about delivering information, because it reads like dry humor. And who doesn’t like a good chuckle or two while they’re expanding their knowledge of a subject?

I think this style of textbook-like comics is really underappreciated in our education system. Think about it… You hand a five pound textbook to a kid and tell them to read 3 chapters of an endless stream of words. Or, you hand them a more condensed book-like comic that also has information in it, and tell them to read 3 chapters. It shows that there’s value in being creative and finding a unique way to tell a story, non-fictional stories included.