I’ll admit I never got into comics. Growing up, my obsession was baseball cards, so I just went in another direction. That said, I completely understand the appeal of comics, and that’s why I can fully support the idea behind Reading With Pictures.
It’s a nonprofit group founded last year that’s hoping to revolutionize how comics are used in education. They’ve even put together an anthology that, as they put it, is “192 pages of awesomeness,” with more than 50 cartoonists volunteering their time and energy to contribute. Included are people who’ve worked on The Sandman, Amazing Spider-Man and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, among many others. The idea behind the program is to bring comics into the classroom, because, as mentioned on Kickstarter, “We believe that comics have the potential to be more engaging, more efficient and more effective than traditional classroom materials.”
While I haven’t been in a classroom in more than (cough) 15 years, I do specifically remember how dry most, if not all, of my textbooks were, so I definitely think that Reading With Pictures is on to something here. The money they’re hoping to raise will be spent in various ways. Along with providing money to print the anthology and help the organization with its funding, it will also go toward programs and initiatives that include a comprehensive research study on the role of comics in education, building a database of comic-centric curriculum and helping cartoonists to produce educational comics.
Go here to pre-order the Reading With Pictures Anthology Vol. 1 (the drawing above is from the anthology), and find out what else you can get based on how much you pledge.
Image courtesy of Reading With Pictures.