Japanese comics and vocabulary

From this article in the SGV Tribune, it sounds like Japanese manga may be ahead of American comics in some respects: they provide interesting vocabulary in their pages:

Kaplan, the test-prep company, and publisher TOKYOPOP partnered on three Manga novels, released in early July, that included vocabulary words such as "exculpate," "sanctimonious," and "unfetter." The words are underlined and are defined in a box on the same page.

Exactly what comic books, both for the young and old alike, can use.