It seems like everyone thinks that the idea of censoring comics in order to protect children is ridiculous. I think there are some pros and cons to this theory. First of all, one must ask the question of why comics should be censored. Do children think it is all right to do everything that is done in comics? Do kids really imitate the crimes and violence they observe in comics? If it is not the fault of the comics, what are the alternative sources of children’s violence? Next, one must assess why it would be good to censor comics. Or, why it might be harmful to children to censor comics. One might argue that it is bad to censor comics because comics do not sell as well and children won’t want to read them anymore. Another explanation might be that censoring comics might shield children from reality. I think that children must know the true reality of life, and should not be censored from it. However, from what I have read in Comic Book Nation, most of the suggested censorship did not display reality in any shape or form. For example, a man cutting a woman’s head off is not reality and should not be displayed as such. One might argue that a comic does not necessarily represent such acts as reality, but a child might not be able to know whether it is reality or not. Thus, I believe that some comics may have needed censorship since parents could not control everything that their children were reading, but comics should not have been censored to the point where children observe a false sense of reality.
To begin with, I really do like the idea of reading a comic about comics. I think it's a great idea and it's very well executed. As I was reading the first two chapters, I was surprised at how many examples there were of art in recent (and ancient, in some cases) history that are variations of "sequential visual art" and thus the foundations of modern comics. I'd never even thought about it before and it was hard to believe how many different kinds there were. I also love all the discussion about how our human brains automatically interpret certain images in a specific way, how we see others constantly but we identify ourselves when we look at cartoons, and how inanimate objects automatically becomes extensions of our bodies. The pyramid of styles was very interesting too as a way to conceptualize and almost graph or "place" a specific art style in comics. In Comic Book Nation , I enjoyed reading about the evolution of early comics from "funnies...
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