WE DON'T NEED NO EDU-MANGA

On Thursday 3rd March it was World Book Day, an annual festival to promote literacy and the joys of the printed word. For a whole day it was impossible to switch on a TV without seeing a freckle-faced little scamp gazing into the camera and listing their favourite books (Harry Potter books 1, 2, and 3, if you care). To the initiated, it was a veritable orgy of saccharine sentiment and good intentions. To a diabetic, it would have been lethal.

Whether it was by coincidence or design, several comic publishers made announcements of their own that same week, an undeniably self-congratulatory smirk creeping into their voices. "We're going to make educational comics!" they cried, and parents and teachers the world over nodded their approval. The kids, meanwhile, slapped their foreheads and issued a collective groan.

Among the offerings on display was an "edu-manga" line from Digital Manga Publishing, where Astro Boy and his amazing friends take readers through the lives of historical figures like Anne Frank, Helen Keller and Mother Teresa (with a dramatisation of Princess Diana's life doubtless forthcoming). Elsewhere, Puffin Classics and Byron Preiss Visual were working on adaptations of classic stories in comics form, including Treasure Island, Macbeth, Dracula and the Wizard of Oz. The Macbeth adaptation in particular, in an effort to make Shakespeare more 'cutting edge', would feature the trials and tribulations of a manga space knight from the year 1040.

Yeah, you can tell the market was just crying out for that one.

The most mind-numbingly awful of the bunch, unsurprisingly, came from Marvel Comics, who announced their plans to distribute two million FANTASTIC FOUR comic books around 6,000 public schools in the United States. The comics are to be accompanied by specially devised lesson plans covering subjects like maths, science, reading and the visual arts. On top of that, the winner of an essay contest will be drawn into a FANTASTIC FOUR comic and will receive $1,000 in Toy BizBiz products.

It sounds so... so selfless, doesn't it? How simply wonderful of Marvel to take such an interest in promoting literacy and education. The fact that they have a FANTASTIC FOUR movie coming out in theatres prior to these lesson plans being distributed has nothing to do with it. Children pestering their parents to see a worthless summer blockbuster is purely incidental to them learning to read along with the adventures of Reed Richards and company. Or is it?

Trying to turn children into customers under the guise of performing a public service is, quite frankly, about as low-down and craven as it's possible for a modern business to stoop, never mind a publisher of comic books. The practices of soft drink giants like Pepsi and Coca-Cola were written about extensively in Eric Schlosser's FAST FOOD NATION, where they offered financial incentives and resources to cash-strapped schools in exchange for promoting their products during school hours, and in this respect Marvel are acting no differently. Promoting literacy is one thing, but promoting your own products in schools at the same time is much more insidious.

In any case, it's not going to work. Of all the schemes outlined above, the Puffin Classics line is the least offensive, because they're retelling timeless stories in a new medium using talented people (9A favourite Becky Cloonan among them). That, and the fact they'll be sold in bookstores to the general public as opposed to the direct market ghetto with their customer-base of saggy-arsed fan-boy bachelors.

'The practice is about as low-down as it's possible for a business to stoop.' As for those comics being distributed in schools, kids can smell a desperate marketing ploy from a mile off, and this ploy is as desperate as they come. Instead of boosting Marvel's educational credentials, it demonstrates how keenly aware they are of the likelihood that the FF movie is going to bomb, and they'll try anything, even indoctrinating America's school children, to avert financial disaster. If teachers gave out grades for brazen flop-sweats, Avi Arad and Joe Quesada would get an 'A++'.

And besides, didn't Marvel consider the odious spectacle of aforesaid fan-boy bachelors hanging around school gates and offering children money for their exclusively school-market comics? I can see the headlines now, and they ain't pretty.

But there's also the little point of fact that children don't read comics for their educational value. They read them because they're fun and they fire up the imagination. They read them because, not so long ago, their parents and teachers considered comics to be anything but educational, and that extra spice of authoritarian disapproval is what encouraged them to read even more. Comics offer an escape from the tedious routine of school and parents, and the last thing kids need is Benjamin Grimm teaching them their ABC.

Wanting them to learn something from their comics is a noble objective, certainly, but when educational dogma supplants the natural rhythms of great storytelling, that's when the comic books become as dead and lifeless as the paper they're printed on. That's when it becomes too much like hard work, and that's when kids stop reading.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Elsewhere in the news this week, a judge has dismissed more than half of the claims of trademark and copyright infringement made by Marvel Comics against game publisher NCsoft and their CITY OF HEROES computer game. The suit specifically centres on the ability offered by the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) for players to create custom characters of their own - that may or may not resemble pre-existing intellectual property.

It sounds dry, but thus far the case has featured enough legal mudslinging and fireworks to put Michael Jackson's trial to shame. Rumours persist that the only reason Marvel wants CITY OF HEROES shut down is so they can set up a substitute MMORPG of their own. And according to a press release issued by NCsoft, some of Marvel's allegations and exhibits were thrown out as "false and sham" because a number of allegedly infringing works depicted in Marvel's pleadings were created not by users, but by Marvel's own legal team.

But a number of Marvel's claims are still going to court, and the outcome should be very interesting, not just in terms of comic-books and the games industry, but also for the controversial issue of copyright protection in the digital age. Thanks to the internet and the disruptive innovations it has engendered, people are increasingly being forced to choose between adhering to rigid terms of copyright, or simply circumventing them altogether. One suspects it'll be a long time before a proper balance is struck.

Bulent Yusuf is a freelance writer based in London.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.