How To Use Classics Illustrated Comic Books to Read Classic Literature
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A lot of book readers today would love to read more classic novels, but everybody knows that old literature can be more difficult to read than today’s average bestseller. However, if you want to read some old classic novels but are reluctant to for whatever reason, you might want to try reading some old Classics Illustrated comic books first. These crusty old beat up comics got me started on reading classic novels decades and decades ago.
Collecting these Classics Illustrated comic books might be easier to do than you think. First of all, Classics Illustrated comic books are extremely undervalued in today’s market if you’re patient on eBay or other online auction/trading sites. Since these Classics Illustrated came out in the 1940s and 1950s, you might expect to pay a lot for them, but you can get them for a few dollars each, sometimes even with shipping included.
Once you get your beat up copies (they don’t necessarily have to be beat up), read the Classics Illustrated comic book to get a basic understanding of the novel of your choice. You can accompany the comic book with an online summary if you’re looking for more literary analysis than what a comic book will provide. Plus. if you have a tough time visualizing a particular time period or character activity, these comic books can also get you started on that too. At least, these got me started decades ago, so if this unintentional strategy could work for some goofy red-headed kid with high-waters in the 1970s, this strategy could work for you too.
SNEAK PREVIEW!!
Once you’re done with the comic book, theoretically you should read the entire novel, but (Ha!) that’s still not always feasible, so you can instead skim through the actual novel and look for the scenes that you’re interested in. I always read portions of the novel (sometimes not much, though) just to get a feeling for the prose. Then I can still legitimately claim to have had made an actual attempt at reading that particular novel, and if I have an opinion about it, I have legitimate reasons for my opinion. Well, at least they’re kind of legitimate. Somewhat legitimate?
If you think using a comic book is cheating, maybe you’re right, but so what? It’s only cheating if you’re doing this for school and relying solely on the comic book. After all, it’s better to use a comic book while reading a classic novel than not to read the classic novel at all, and it’s probably more accurate than any movie you’re going to watch. With Classics Illustrated comic books, you get visual summaries of classic novels, and you get some cool, cheap, old comics along the way as well. And cool, cheap comic books are the best!
ANOTHER SNEAK PREVIEW!!
Life is short, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get to all the books that you want to read. Using Classics Illustrated helped me ‘read’ a lot of novels that I’d otherwise never have gotten through or have even attempted. And that in turn has given me more time to read the junk that I really like, such as old paperback bestsellers, sword & sorcery short stories, Golden/Silver/Bronze Age comic books, old comic strips, cheesy pulp adventure/mystery novels, cheesy pulp short stories, out-of-print collector edi…
TEASER TRAILER!!!
Enough about me and my opinions/experiences! What do you think? Is it cheating to use Classics Illustrated when reading classic literature? Does stuff like that even matter once you’re out of school? What novel would you like to use a Classics Illustrated with? Show that you’re not a literature snob by leaving a comment below.
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For more about classic comic books and/or classic literature, see…
The Comic Book/Comic Strip Home Page
How Classic Comic Books Led Me To Classic Literature!
Why Should I Read This? Ulysses by James Joyce
Bad Sentences in Classic Literature: The Great Gatsby
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Here it is, my ONE and only novel!!!
It might never be considered classic literature, but it’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
This is super interesting! With the surge of graphic novels, I’ve seen classic renditions, but had not thought about the original comic books. I’ve never read those, but I was a huge Archie comic book fan when I was a girl. Our library has an online comics subscription and after I post this comment, I’m going to see if they have any classics. Thanks for sharing the sneak previews too!
Thank YOU for mentioning Archie comics! Archie comics are awesome in their own ways, especially since you can find some form of an Archie comic almost anywhere nowadays. I wish other comic companies would follow the Archie formula. That might make another blog post. Thanks for the idea! And good luck with the classics!
Update: I found the Classics Illustrated on ComicsPlus – I’m going to check them out – what a great find!
Great! I hope there’s a decent comic for each classic novel you’re interested in.