Cold War: Simple Angus Mcleod

This webcomic represents a more educational take on a historical topic, which could easily see a shift into a classroom setting. While the comic still satirizes both the USA and USSR in the Cold War and implements many humorous elements into the webcomic, it still provides a very succinct summary of the history for individuals learning the material. Comics as a whole are often mischaracterized as violent or purely for entertainment, but many webcomics have value in many forms beyond that. Cold War is a perfect example of a digital native comic that could provide a complementary teaching tool for students learning about this topic in a manner that could stimulate the students [1].

There has been much headway in the last decade implementing comics as multimodal forms of teaching as studies have shown functional use in composition and literature as well as history [2]. Comics allow individuals to exercise and improve upon their analytical and critical thinking skills as well as develop their skills with the electronic and visual modes. Lastly, these respective webcomics can push an agenda that has been consistent with authors literature for thousands of years. In this specific case, the right of franchise as well as promoting popular rule and democratic principles can be found ubiquitously throughout its plot, which is consistent with literature found in the earliest forms of the republic itself [3]. Through this subtheme, many invaluable principles can be taught such as pluralism, compromise, and other civic behaviors, which clearly hold value to an audience of any age, especially the younger generation.

1. Gerde, Virginia W., and R. Spencer Foster. "X-Men Ethics: Using Comic Books to Teach Business Ethics." Journal of Business Ethics 77, no. 3 (2008): 245-58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25075560.

2. Gabriel Sealey-Morris, “The Rhetoric of the Paneled Page: Comics and Composition Pedagogy,” Composition Studies 43, Iss. 1, (Spring 2015): 31-50,214. Accessed Feb 21, 2019, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1753216901?accountid=1110

3. Fletcher, Angus. Comic Democracies : From Ancient Athens to the American Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1083525&site=ehost-live.