If you go to certain internet sites to read posts you will notice that they give you an estimate such as: "approximate time to read 3 minutes" and so on.
As a publisher you know you are losing when someone asks "How long will it take to read this comic?"
Really.
You cannot blame the the internet for things just the people who provide content and use it. Eire is noted -or was- as being far more literate and people bought and read books more than anywhere in the UK. In the UK hundreds of public libraries have closed because of too few people using them. There is no variety in the type of books you will find in a book store (most seem to rely on discounted stock).
As a country to UK has progressed to the point where literacy is at an all time low and according to the National Literacy Trust:
You sit down with a comic or graphic novel and read as much as you want in one sitting: you read the story and you look at the art and it is (should be) entertaining. The UK appears to have become an inflamed boil on literacy's ass.
That's my screaming done.
As a publisher you know you are losing when someone asks "How long will it take to read this comic?"
Really.
You cannot blame the the internet for things just the people who provide content and use it. Eire is noted -or was- as being far more literate and people bought and read books more than anywhere in the UK. In the UK hundreds of public libraries have closed because of too few people using them. There is no variety in the type of books you will find in a book store (most seem to rely on discounted stock).
As a country to UK has progressed to the point where literacy is at an all time low and according to the National Literacy Trust:
Around 15 per cent, or 5.1 million adults in England, can be described as 'functionally illiterate.' They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old. They can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately and independently, and obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources, or on unfamiliar topics, could cause problems.
Many adults are reluctant to admit to their literacy difficulties and ask for help. One of the most important aspects of supporting adults with low literacy levels is to increase their self-esteem and persuade them of the benefits of improving their reading and writing.
But -ffs!- asking how much of your very important life a comic will take to read and look at the art....I actually taught Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani kids to read English by using comics in the 1970s and....gargh!You sit down with a comic or graphic novel and read as much as you want in one sitting: you read the story and you look at the art and it is (should be) entertaining. The UK appears to have become an inflamed boil on literacy's ass.
That's my screaming done.
Funnily (!) enough, I've just revisited a film within my files of Carl Sagan's address to Congress covering the link between nutrition - emphasising lack of it - and illiteracy in the United States, at that time stating the estimate of forty million illiterate or semi-literate adults. Note the date of 1994! In this address, taken from an issue of 'Parade', authored by himself and Ann Druyan, he also mentioned very possible life-long cognitive difficulties intrinsic with sometimes even just mild childhood malnutrition. Fast forward to today, not just with the States, but in the UK with food banks and reported cases of children raiding food bins. Worst case scenario leading to measurably smaller brain size via it losing nutrients key to it's proper development because of the body's prioritising efforts simply to keep the child living and progressing to adulthood. The implications of a society impaired in the ability to read, at the same time as the need for increased literacy and reliance on advanced technology is staring us in the face with disaster. He termed it a "national security issue" for the United States at THAT time. My question would be, what about now, both in the USA and the United Kingdom?
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