Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 337, Reading Comic Books.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 337.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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The topic for this episode is comic books. things that are written with words and pictures.
We'll talk a little bit about comic books in the United States during our discussion and who reads them and who doesn't.
Let's get started.
It's a graphic novel.
Graphic novel?
You mean a comic book?
I thought you were too old for that sort of thing.
For your information, this is a graphic novel, and it's a literary art form.
Graphic novels are written for mature audiences, not kids.
You might want to check these out.
Look at this bound collection, for instance.
It has a storyline that's as complex as a novel, and each panel is a work of art.
It is pretty impressive looking.
I'm not that interested in superheroes, though.
The Superman and Spider-Man comic books are great, but the graphic novels today are even more sophisticated.
Some of them are still serialized, like the old comic books, but many of them are self-contained, like this one.
There are as many genres of graphic novels as there are movies or books.
I'm really surprised that someone who likes to read as much as you do knows so little about graphic novels.
I've come across them in bookstores before, but I had a preconceived notion that they were for kids.
I guess I was.
There's a first time for everything.
Our dialogue between Stan and Lee begins by Lee saying, what are you reading?
And Stan says, it's a graphic novel.
A graphic novel is a term we use to describe basically a comic book that is written for adults.
This term became popular in the last 15 years or so to describe books that were written at a more sophisticated level.
In the United States, when you talk about comic books, people think about the things that are written for small children.
And that's Americans' association with comic books.
So you almost never, for example, on a bus or a train, will see an adult reading a comic book.
Graphic novels are types of comic books, but they're considered more serious and more sophisticated.
Lee says, I thought you were too old for that sort of thing.
Notice this idea that comic books are for children.
Stan says.
We use that expression at the beginning of a sentence.
For your information to mean, I am going to correct what you just said basically.
You say it when you are perhaps a little upset, a little angry.
Stan says, for your information.
This is a graphic novel, and it's a literary art form.
Literary is an adjective meaning related to literature.
The poems of the American poet Edgar Allan Poe are considered literary masterpieces, good poems.
Art form is a type of art.
So literary art form is a type of art related to literature.
Stan says graphic novels are written for mature audiences, not kids.
A mature audience can mean a couple of different things.
Here it just means adults who are older, not children.
Sometimes we'll talk about someone being more mature, to mean that they are more emotionally and socially developed or sophisticated.
Mature is also sometimes used to refer to certain books or movies that are not appropriate for young children or for teenagers because of the topic or the language or violence or perhaps even sexual content of the movie or book.
So graphic novels are written for mature audiences.
Lee says, really?
I don't know anything about comic books.
I like reading the comic strips in the paper.
A comic strip is a series of about four frames, four boxes that have funny drawings and tell a very small or short joke.
And in the newspaper, you can see many different comic strips.
They're popular among children and adults, more among children than adults, probably.
When I was younger.
I'm still young, but when I was younger I used to read comic strips in the newspaper every morning while I ate my cold cereal and milk.
Stan says you might want to check these out.
You might want to look at these.
Look at this bound collection, for instance.
To be bound, B-O-U-N-D, means that something is held together at one edge.
Usually we are talking about a book.
Bound Binding Bound It has a storyline that is as complex as a novel, Stan says.
The storyline is the main story in the book or the novel or the movie or the play.
What's the storyline?
What is the basic story?
He says the storyline is as complex as a novel.
Complex here means complicated, the opposite of simple, not simple.
Stan says, each panel is a work of art.
The different sections in a comic book or in a comic strip are called panels, P-A-N-E-L-S.
Both the word panel and the word bound have additional meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Stan says each panel is a work of art.
When someone says it's a work of art, they mean it's very artistic, imaginative, creative.
Something that you should respect because it's very beautiful.
Lee says it is pretty impressive.
I'm not that interested in superheroes though.
A superhero is an imaginary made-up person with special powers.
Spider-Man and Superman are superheroes.
That's an example.
Jeff McQuillan is a superhero, but only in his own mind.
Stan says that the Superman and Spider-Man comic books are great superhero comic books.
But the graphic novels today are even more sophisticated, he says.
Sophisticated means, again, not simple, not common, more advanced, more elegant.
Some of them are still serialized like the old comic books, he says.
Some of the comic books are serialized.
When we say a book or a comic book is serialized, we mean they publish it in sections.
One week will be the first chapter, the next week will be the second chapter, and so on.
This was a very popular way of publishing books for many years.
Not as popular recently, although...
The New York Times Magazine on Sundays has usually one or two serialized stories, small chapters of stories over many weeks.
Stan says that many of the comic books are self-contained.
Self-contained means all in one piece.
That's how you typically buy a book.
It's self-contained.
It's not serialized.
Lee says, Stan says, Stan says, G-E-N-R-E is a French word.
We pronounce it genre in English, which means a specific type or style of literature or of movies or of music.
In classical music we have the genre of Baroque music and of Romantic music and something we call classical music, which is in between the Baroque and the Romantic.
Those are genres.
There are many genres of graphic novels, Stan says.
I'm really surprised that someone who reads as much as you do knows so little about graphic novels.
Lee says, I've come across them in bookstores before.
To come across them means I've found them, although I wasn't looking for them, almost by accident.
But Lee says, I had a preconceived notion that they were for kids.
When something is preconceived, that means you've decided about it before you even have any experience with it, before you really know the truth.
He had a preconceived idea about what Los Angeles is.
He thought it would be ugly and polluted and crowded.
That's true in some places, but not in all places.
She has a preconceived notion.
A notion is just another word for an idea, a concept, an opinion about something.
Stan says, We use that expression as a joke.
There's a first time for everything means that you shouldn't be surprised by anything, because anything is possible, even things that are very unexpected.
Lee is saying here that she never has made a mistake before, so there's a first time for everything.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What are you reading?
It's a graphic novel.
Graphic novel?
You mean a comic book?
I thought you were too old for that sort of thing.
For your information, this is a graphic novel, and it's a literary art form.
Graphic novels are written for mature audiences, not kids.
Really?
I don't know anything about comic books.
I like reading the comic strips in the newspaper, but I've never read an entire comic book before.
You might want to check these out.
Look at this Bound collection, for instance.
It has a storyline that's as complex as a novel, and each panel is a work of art.
It is pretty impressive looking.
I'm not that interested in superheroes though.
The Superman and Spider-Man comic books are great, but the graphic novels today are even more sophisticated.
Some of them are still serialized, like the old comic books, but many of them are self-contained, like this one.
Are there ones without too much fighting?
I've come across them in bookstores before, but I had a preconceived notion that they were for kids.
I guess I was.
There's a first time for everything.
This episode was written by our superhero script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
