I was disappointed to read the editorial description of “Persepolis” and all other graphic novels as “little more than advanced comic books.” The generalization suggests a close-mindedness that I can only hope is unworthy of the editorial staff of The Ithacan. Like the other new forms of media spurned by the editorial (television, video games, and the Internet), comic books have yet to be accepted by society as legitimate art forms due to both their novelty and the majority of the medium which focuses on pulp marketability rather than artistic depth. However, this majority does not erase literary achievements that share a medium with the likes of Superman, such as Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese,” and Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Maus.” The presence of “low-art” does not doom an entire medium to insignificance, unless the contributions of Jane Austen have been erased by the overwhelming proliferation of airport romance novels. Even the medium of the fictional novel, revered as artistic today, was criticized as frivolous and harmful to society by early detractors when it first appeared. Perhaps the choice of “Persepolis” for the First-Year Reading Initiative was not an effort to dumb down the program or cater to the illiterate freshmen of today, but rather to reflect and progress the burgeoning maturity of a young art form.

Greg Swain ’08