Text - Rhodes University

The decision as to whether visual literacy is desirable or not is apparently dependant on
the environment within which such theories are constructed. In Japan, comics have long
been an acceptable form of literature. In 1980, 27% of all published material were comics
(Schodt, 1983, p.12), read by both adults and children. Neurophysiologists, psychologists,
and educators stated in an article in a Tokyo newspaper in 1981 that:
"... since comics combine language and pictures, they stimulate both right
and left hemispheres [of the brain] and should contribute to improved
design capability and pattern recognition ...[They also] develop in readers
an ability to quickly perceive the essence of a problem without relying on
linear logic; and they may be a factor in the dexterity with which young
Japanese handle computers ..." (p.21)
Whatever the merits of comic reading skills, comics remain incomprehensible without
their acquisition. "Readers have to learn the skills of understanding the relation between
separate pictures. Each one is a 'still frame' out of a moving sequence; and that one is
'later' than this one." (Barker, 1982, p.6)
An example from personal experience that demonstrates the unique nature of such
reading skills is that of the 1990 Rhodes Rag Magazine. The standard format of such
magazines consists of pages of unrelated jokes and cartoons. The editors tried to alter
this format to that of a comic, with a continuous story running through the entire issue.
Even though the contents page stated explicitly that the publication was a comic, the
immediate realization of this was hampered by the editors' conceit of using pictures from
diverse sources to construct the actual narrative. The magazine failed dismally; readers
could not make sense of it, because they treated each frame as a sepate item. In this
case, even the presence of captions, speech bubbles and directional arrows were not
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