Labour MP Tom Harris doesn’t like Dundee’s new degree in Comic Studies.
Okay, this is going to be a brief post because I’m a bit busy, and I’m going to set out two things you should probably know pretty baldly.
1. Tom Harris and I seem to disagree about everything.
It began when I made some unkind references to Tony Blair and the War on Terror and the War In Iraq and the frankly shameful business of the dodgy dossier, the 45 minute claim, and the UK’s increasingly obvious complicity in torture around the world. It has not greatly changed course since then.
2. I like comics. I did, in fact, study comics a bit at a university.
So I am either biased or in a position to know the benefits of studying comics, take your pick. Incidentally, the course in question was “Aspects of American Culture”, which introduced me to Robert Warshow‘s writing (on movies, anti-communism on the left, McCarthyism, and, yes, comics), which in turn influenced my thinking in The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker and in general enriches my life. The course was part of a Media, Culture, and Ideology paper, the degree was Social and Political Science, the other components of my path through it being Revolutions, Russian 20th Century History, and Global Security. But of course, Mr Harris is right, it wasn’t a proper “university” (see below), it was just some dusty provincial flophouse for the academic dregs, so what do they know about academic or real-world value?
Okay, that off my chest, here goes:
I see absolutely no reason to dispute the value of a Master’s in Comic Studies. The debate about film schools is always thriving within the UK film industry – those who went generally feel it was hugely helpful and those who didn’t can’t understand how they could waste all that time. They have different skill sets and make different films, and that’s all to the good.
The comics industry is hard to break into and a little opaque; one of the functions of degree courses in media industries is to break through that kind of barrier, give people a sense not only of how they need to produce their work but how to get people to look at it, how the industry as a whole functions. In film, for example, it’s not uncommon to meet writers with a strong grip on demographics and studio economics. So a standard movie pitch might not only go:
It’s about this guy who discovers his wife is actually an alien bent on destroying the world, and he loves her so much he decides to help, but in the end she realises she loves him so much she can’t do it and they farm alpacas instead…
But also:
It fills the gap in your slate for the 18-34 urban demographic. If we make it for under £5m you’ll make the budget back on Brazilian rights alone.
I’ll leave discussion of teaching the techniques and necessities of comics writing and drawing etc to others, and move on…
The thing which finally triggered my decision to blog about the spat – and which remains relevant now that Tom Harris has changed his position a little – was this:
Right ho.
Here’s a few things a degree in Batman could teach you:
The conflicted nature of US self-perception relating to written law as against justice; one face of US foreign policy and its origins – and latterly, consequences; aspects of US copyright and IP law; history and consequences of the Great Depression; the myth of the ‘big break’, the lottery, and the notion of Hard Work; the interweaving of the US’ Puritan origins with capitalism and charity; the nature of the American relationship with the gun; the historical rise of Freudianism in US culture; issues of race and gender in the US…
And on and on and on. This is an icon, shaped by every major event in US history since its inception, handled by many writers, editors, artists. Batman isn’t just Bruce Wayne: he’s Uncle Sam on a bad day.
Seriously? I can understand if you don’t want to study that. But taking the idea as a standard of foolishness? No. That, I do not understand.
[John Freeman's piece on this is here. No doubt Mr Harris will respond. Round and round and round we go.]