"Anyone should be able to read comics"
About this Quote
A slogan disguised as a shrug, Ted Rall's line plants a flag in the most contested terrain of comics: who gets to enter, and on what terms. "Anyone" is doing the heavy lifting. It's not just about literacy in the basic sense; it's an argument against gatekeeping dressed up as common sense. Comics have long been treated like a toy aisle medium, then rebranded as a prestige form once "graphic novels" started showing up on syllabi. Rall's phrasing dodges that whole respectability ladder and goes straight to the democratic claim: this art should not require a password.
The subtext is a quiet indictment of how often comics become inaccessible by design. That can mean literal barriers (tiny type, bad scans, crowded panels, insider references) and cultural ones (a fandom that polices taste, an industry that assumes a narrow demographic, critics who treat clarity as "simple"). Rall, as a working cartoonist, isn't speaking from an ivory tower; he's defending the craft choices that let a strip land in three seconds and still reward a second look. It's a pro-reader ethos: clarity is not the enemy of sophistication.
Context matters because comics sit at the crossroads of mass media and art-world validation. "Anyone should be able to read comics" pushes back on the idea that difficulty equals value. It also hints at comics' unique promise: a medium where visual storytelling can welcome beginners, kids, non-native speakers, and lapsed readers without diluting ambition. In Rall's hands, accessibility isn't a compromise; it's the point.
The subtext is a quiet indictment of how often comics become inaccessible by design. That can mean literal barriers (tiny type, bad scans, crowded panels, insider references) and cultural ones (a fandom that polices taste, an industry that assumes a narrow demographic, critics who treat clarity as "simple"). Rall, as a working cartoonist, isn't speaking from an ivory tower; he's defending the craft choices that let a strip land in three seconds and still reward a second look. It's a pro-reader ethos: clarity is not the enemy of sophistication.
Context matters because comics sit at the crossroads of mass media and art-world validation. "Anyone should be able to read comics" pushes back on the idea that difficulty equals value. It also hints at comics' unique promise: a medium where visual storytelling can welcome beginners, kids, non-native speakers, and lapsed readers without diluting ambition. In Rall's hands, accessibility isn't a compromise; it's the point.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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