Comic Book Space Rhetoric
From earliest childhood to old age, the comics have influenced reading. Whether the Sunday comic strips or editions of Disney’s works, comic book art and narratives have been a reading catalyst. Indeed, they have played a huge role in entertaining people of all ages. However, their vocabulary, sentence structure, and overall appropriateness, as reading resources, are often in doubt. Though at times too “graphic” for youth or too “childish” for adults, their use as an educational resource has merit. Such is the case with the following application, COMIC BOOK SPACE SCIENCE as a reading/writing tool.
To begin, consider the cover art displayed below from
four children’s comics:
Click here for the Dennis the Menace cover.
Click here for the Mighty Mouse cover.
Click here for the Planet Terry cover.
Obviously, the scenes above are fantastical based on the laws of science. Space is a
vacuum devoid of air to breathe as well as gravity for stability. Only Donald Duck among the comic book heroes
sports a spacesuit with an attached air-tank for breathing. And, what about
Planet Terry’s wrestling in zero-g? However,
as a writing exercise, the four covers can be examined for scientific flaws. Find at least five errors which can be
described in a paragraph. Explain why,
from a scientific point of view, each is
a flaw. For example, having a wig cover
the Earth’s northern hemisphere is altogether ridiculous. Additionally, cloud formations cover more
than the Earth’s equatorial regions as shown in the MIGHTY MOUSE comic. First, list
the five items which will be included in your one page paragraph. Next, compose a paragraph based on them.
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