The Four Color Media Monitor

The writer Ann Althouse pointed to two examples quoted from the New York Times of individuals who either like or hate graphic novels. From the first:

“It is too difficult for me to constantly switch back and forth between the pictures and the text bubbles,” says the animal behaviorist and advocate for autistic people, whose new book (with Betsy Lerner) is “Visual Thinking.” “I like technical and scientific books with lots of illustrations.” [...]

Actually, I hate graphic novels. It is too difficult for me to constantly switch back and forth between the pictures and the text bubbles. I like technical and scientific books with lots of illustrations. When I read business books and scientific papers, I often look at the illustrations and graphs first. The next step is to read the text. When I am reading a novel or a memoir, I prefer to create my own pictures in my imagination. As I read the text, my brain creates a movie.

And from the second:

I don’t really read novels. I read a lot of essays and other things, though. I read an enormous amount of manga. Fujiko Fujio often write stories about a character succeeding in life. I loved this kind of manga when I was a small child. The character would move to Tokyo, rent out a tiny apartment, study super hard and succeed. He writes those kinds of success stories. I love them. I still read anything by Osamu Tezuka. He writes many different manga, so I read them all.... I also read Fujio Akatsuka. He is a super famous manga artist....

From the way this is presented, one could wonder if this makes it look more like somebody doesn't like western-style comics, but is fine with Asian-style, even if 2 different people are in focus. In any event, I honestly can't find much to be impressed about in stuff that's coming from such a terrible newspaper that doesn't really respect the art form, any more than most other liberal papers.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime, msm propaganda