Comic Book Figurative Language

by B Meyer
(Decatur MI)

Comic book language ideas are good in this day and age of films and games being made from them. I'm not a teacher or parent but I have nieces and a nephew I get comic books and graphic novels for when they go on trips or camping or overnights.

I have fun calling their attention to the figurative language things I think are clever. They see other clever language things, so it's like a trade.

I went more into maths and that in high school, but I remember studying similes and metaphors.

Now I have noticed something really cool lately when I do the comic book thing with the kids. They SEE figurative language, too. More than I do. Like a few weekends ago, when one of them caught something in the drawing that looked like a "visual pun". I don't know if you can have a visual pun but there was a skyscraper in the background of a frame in a graphic novel that had mouse ears on the top instead of telecommunications antennas. So neat. We flipped back and reread the skyscraper backgrounds and, sure enough, we'd missed a couple. So now, I think, they will even reread and skim for things. Those are reading skills, too, right?

That's my comment.

My question and request is for more comic book figurative language!

Real World reply: Comic Book Figurative Language? Will do! In fact, we will start to build it on this very page. Future visitors will thank you!

The skyscraper ears are absolutely a visual pun! Great graphic play on symbols linking a telecommunications structure to its "ear" or hearing function.

Throughout our Real World content modules, we will continue to work on other language arts ideas like the menu descriptors activity and sports card language feature. Thanks to you, we will now link back and forth from this page so when something new is uploaded, you will find it quickly.

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Meanwhile we look forward to receiving any other comment or story or teaching idea about Comic Book Figurative Language.