Journal of Research & Scholarly Output 2006 - Grimsby Institute of ...

The intention of this study was to investigate
the reasons contributing to the
contemporary bias against sequential art in
the United Kingdom. Whilst further events
during the twentieth century reinforced and
amplified this bias up to the present day, the
conclusion is that attitudes to image-based
narrative were significantly altered during
the events of the Reformation, and
confusion regarding the nature of sequential
art’s purpose and usage was generated by
the development of the political cartoon
during the Eighteenth Century. Increasingly,
media and literary critics are vocalising their
conclusions that sequential art deserves the
same respect as other written media (16), be
it prose, scriptwriting or poetry, but the
magnitude of the historical events that
changed cultural attitudes towards imagebased
storytelling in this country were of
such a scale that their effects are felt even
today. The irony is that, at some stage,
everyone in this country relies upon a
combination of text and imagery presented
in a sequential manner when learning to
read - but perhaps this in itself is a further
significant reason why the British continue
to believe that ‘comics are for kids’.
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