The Lit, Art, and Image course, also known as Why Comics, is an upper-level English elective taught by Andrew Stevens at Concord Academy. In this course, students engage with various comic books to develop creative, literary, and analytical skills. Some of the texts used include Why Comics?, Fun Home, One Hundred Demons, and Gender Queer. Why Comics? by Hillary Chute, specifically, which he first saw at the Harvard Bookstore and bought out of curiosity, inspired Stevens to create the comics class. What interested him was how Chute discussed comics in a rigorous and professional way, which motivated him to make a course that did the same. With previous knowledge of reading and studying comics to writing comics reviews, Stevens felt prepared to teach this course. Despite having encountered the COVID-19 pandemic and two childbirths while teaching the course, these external factors failed to diminish his passion for the class.
About his course’s uniqueness, he said, “I don’t think any other high schools offer a course solely on teaching comics, at least not that I know of.” More specifically, usually English courses take either the creative or analytical lane; however, Stevens’ comics course incorporates both, with the comics course adding a sense of play to students’ learning process. Students will also experience an independent creative process as they create their personal autobiographical comics, which prevents students from merely passively consuming materials and instead encourages active creative engagement.
Comics, unlike other literature, which is often dense, are accessible to readers due to their combination of drawings and words. Its special form tends to make people find comics as an easier and lighter read. This does not mean, however, that comics are less complex than other forms of literary work. Stevens explained that images are very powerful in the way that they speak for themselves and that the content tends to appear more relatable to readers.
Stevens selected the texts being taught in this class carefully, aiming to balance density and simplicity, intensity and lightness, heaviness and liveliness, to provide students with a well-rounded comics reading experience. The first half of the course focuses on exploring graphic memoirs, which tend to be more personal and sentimental, such as One Hundred Demons, Fun Home, and Maple Terrace. The course then pivots to reading hero stories like Watchmen: The Deluxe Edition, to discuss power systems. From each reading, Stevens hopes students will discover a new part of themselves and their relationship with art through the creative process. Lynda Barry started One Hundred Demons not knowing where it would take her, but her trust in the creative process led to the comic becoming one of her most well-known pieces. Additionally, students learn to understand the complexity and intentionality behind each story, where the layout of each panel, the drawn point of view, and the dialogue are all intentional choices made by the author.
Comics as a form of art display authenticity through their combined textual and visual media. Learning from them in Stevens' course, students will develop independent skills in analyzing verbally and visually, and in exploring their own creative work.