Are Comics Hard to Read?

[Goggindowner]

Recently, an acquaintance expressed interest in starting up reading comics. We went back and forth a bit, mostly me making some recommendations on what might be interesting to them or suggestions based on things I had enjoyed and found accessible to readers. The ultimate recommendation wasn't anything beyond the standard stuff, so I let them borrow it out of my collection.

A few days later, they give the book back only having read about a forth of the way through it. The reason they didn't finish it is because reading comics, for them, was "hard" and very different from reading a book, which obviously is true. Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't bother me that they decided to give it up so quickly. They have a ton of stuff going on in their life like most of us do, so taking on a new hobby probably just isn't on the table right now.

I have read comics my entire life, and I have studied the art form beyond just being a reader. Page and panel layouts, color pallets, as well as comic theory. I am pretty deep in to the medium, is my point. But in all of that study, it never occurred to me that it would be difficult to read a comic if you weren't familiar with the medium. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Either personally thought it was difficult or been told by someone that it was? This is new ground for me, so I'm curious if this is an isolated case.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Depends on how the story is presented, if something is placed in 10 different consecutive titles it is ridiculously difficult to read, comic Marvel & DC still make this unwise choice.
Something like Morrison's Batman, demanding the reader to be familiar with a lot of Batman's history is hard to read for the new comers.
Walking Dead should be easier to sit through.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Reading comics is a particular form of reading that, like anything else, is easier if you pick it up as a child. I've also heard of people who try as adults and just can't figure out what order to read in, for example. It might be better to start a new reader off with some comics with simpler panel layouts and designs.

[Mormel]

I have a difficult time wrapping my head around this, though. Even if you somehow managed to avoid even a single comic book in your childhood, the newspapers and a fair number of magazines tend to have a couple of comic strips tucked away somewhere.

If you can read 3 panels of Garfield, you can plow your way through Dark Phoenix Saga. I'd sooner think it's reluctance or even a little bit of embarrassment over reading something that many people consider 'childish' or 'geeky', than it is an actual inability/difficulty to read them.

EDIT: Additional: comic books aren't the only thing in the media or elsewhere in the public space that makes use of a combination of images and text. It's found in certain magazines, in museum exhibitions, on billboards and posters, in leaflets, and perhaps most importantly these days, on the internet. Comic books aren't that far a step beyond those text/visual aesthetics.

[Detox]

I wouldnt say they are "hard" to read at all. It is a very different reading experience from that of a book and I guess just not enjoyable to some.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I have a difficult time wrapping my head around this, though. Even if you somehow managed to avoid even a single comic book in your childhood, the newspapers and a fair number of magazines tend to have a couple of comic strips tucked away somewhere.

If you can read 3 panels of Garfield, you can plow your way through Dark Phoenix Saga. I'd sooner think it's reluctance or even a little bit of embarrassment over reading something that many people consider 'childish' or 'geeky', than it is an actual inability/difficulty to read them.

EDIT: Additional: comic books aren't the only thing in the media or elsewhere in the public space that makes use of a combination of images and text. It's found in certain magazines, in museum exhibitions, on billboards and posters, in leaflets, and perhaps most importantly these days, on the internet. Comic books aren't that far a step beyond those text/visual aesthetics.

And starting off with comic books that are similar to comic strips is a good way to get into them. Sometimes established comics readers make recommendations for new to comics readers to jump into stuff with layouts like this, though:



And I can understand why people have trouble.

[GOLGO 13]

I think it's just all the backstory/history that is probably daunting to a new reader if your not starting with issue 1. Spidey, Bat, Super men all have pretty well know origins so those are easy to get. Heck, even Punisher is pretty simple really.

However, who is Hellboy or Judge Dread or something as screwed up as Moon Knight. I wouldn't want to explain Hellblazer or The Authority to a new reader.

[Jeff Brady]

What did your friend find "hard" about reading the comic?

[osakafanz]

And starting off with comic books that are similar to comic strips is a good way to get into them. Sometimes established comics readers make recommendations for new to comics readers to jump into stuff with layouts like this, though:



And I can understand why people have trouble.

Title of book pls?

[DebkoX]

All down to presentation. Sometimes I see art which makes reading feel a chore.

[Pharozonk]

Considering how decompressed modern comics are, it's not like much even happens in a book anyway. Is he/she trying to read 80's Claremont books?

[Paradox]

Time honored storytelling techniques have gone the way of the dodo. Take Shawn's example. The eye isn't drawn anywhere in particular. Instead the eye is confronted with a rigid and jagged bunch of parallelograms with no direction. The figure in the middle is not drawn to give any help with this at all, instead seems totally separate from the design. Whoever did this is not thinking ahead, just throwing things at the page with seemingly no thought to anything but "a bunch of panels and Batman on a line".

[Mormel]

Time honored storytelling techniques have gone the way of the dodo. Take Shawn's example. The eye isn't drawn anywhere in particular. Instead the eye is confronted with a rigid and jagged bunch of parallelograms with no direction. The figure in the middle is not drawn to give any help with this at all, instead seems totally separate from the design. Whoever did this is not thinking ahead, just throwing things at the page with seemingly no thought to anything but "a bunch of panels and Batman on a line".

Though I'm unfamiliar with the book from which this spread is taken, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this, Doxy. I think it's a neat arrangement of panels. The main function of this 2-page spread is to showcase all the heroes that are keeping the streets safe at night, as the little girl is narrating. Putting Batman at the center of this and giving him the biggest focus fits with his iconic status in the DC universe. All the other panels to the side and bottom, kind of 'jutting out' toward the reader, make for a nice touch. I can't comment on the quality of the comic as a whole (not having read it), but I like what the artist has done here.

Still, I can see how this arrangement of art and text might be confusing to someone newly coming into comics, even though the word balloons/captions are telling their story in a neat line from the top left corner to the bottom right.

[Greg]

I'm often surprised to hear this but I know a few friends who have found it hard to read comics. One is an English teacher who felt he sorta had to push and teach himself to understand the format and how to properly read it, another a former co-worker of mine. I lent him Batman: The Long Halloween after his excitement after seeing the Dark Knight and he simply couldn't understand how to read the book. I tried to explain it to him, but the whole aspect of the panels along with dialogue and narration caption for some reason he could not get.

I have heard of cases of this happening but it always surprises me. And it's not that these people are slow or not intelligent, they simply can't seem to grasp how to read a comic.

[Michael P]

Though I'm unfamiliar with the book from which this spread is taken, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this, Doxy. I think it's a neat arrangement of panels. The main function of this 2-page spread is to showcase all the heroes that are keeping the streets safe at night, as the little girl is narrating. Putting Batman at the center of this and giving him the biggest focus fits with his iconic status in the DC universe. All the other panels to the side and bottom, kind of 'jutting out' toward the reader, make for a nice touch. I can't comment on the quality of the comic as a whole (not having read it), but I like what the artist has done here.

Still, I can see how this arrangement of art and text might be confusing to someone newly coming into comics, even though the word balloons/captions are telling their story in a neat line from the top left corner to the bottom right.

Yeah, I have to say the layout works quite well. The upper left and lower right panels bookend it effectively, with the speaker beginning and wrapping up the theme in them, and they're placed at the natural start and end points for a page. The center image draws the eye quite well, being bigger than any of the others and right in the center, and the narration reinforces the theme and presents Batman as a literal illustration of it. The side panels are literally grouped around it, showcasing other examples and echoing the Batman image while pointing towards it. It would be better if Batman were doing something besides just swinging on his batrope, and the Superman panel throws off the symmetry, but it's very effective.