The Four Color Media Monitor

DT Next reports the book fair at Chennai, India, is presenting comics about science

The 48th Chennai Book Fair features new and unique ways to attract bibliophiles from in and around the city. Comic books, which used to be illustrated story books tickling your funny bone with the occasional moral lessons thrown in, are now available in the form of educational books.

Some parents with school-going kids cannot contain their glee at the way subjects like science and mathematics are illustrated in comic books.

“Such books simplify science, promote reading, enhance learning and help to remember the concepts. That’s why parents buy them. Books are available in four levels between the age group of 5-16 years,” said A Arul Solai Murugan, Aruvi technologies, Stall 421 of the Book Fair.

The creators who produced these science comics have done a great service for the medium along with science itself. But of course, can you expect USA artists and writers to take this kind of idea more seriously? Probably not, unfortunately. In the past, there have been some comics dealing with science as an educational subject, and I vaguely remember reading one in my childhood about energy, but I suspect today, there's far less of that in the USA, if at all. I'd suggest indie creators who recognize the potential in such educational formats try more seriously to develop some of their own, though not in mere pamphlet formats, but in paperback formats. After all, as I've opined before, the format needs to change for comicdom to improve its fortunes.

Labels: conventions, Europe and Asia, science