This is a fascinating look at progressive early literacy teaching from New Zealand in the early 1960s. It combines tremendous insight into how children learn with overtly racist descriptions of students and classroom interactions. Despite some diary entries that will make your stomach flip over, this is an interesting book. It made me reassess my view of western children’s books.

I wanted to love this book. It does break down and present many aspects of the art and industry of comic books, but something is missing. I was disappointed that not a single woman was featured in the insider profiles and the majority of the illustrations were typical super hero fare. Likewise, the language in the text is not inclusive. “An artist depicting that scene has to sift though the language, find that emotional content and pull it to the surface – dramatizing it as effectively and clearly as he can.” Now I know that some of you will say “he or she” gets cumbersome, but there are multiple examples of this throughout and cumulatively it has a door-slamming effect. The phrase that bothered me most was the use of “Nicely done, Mr. Artist.” making the hypothetical future artist male for no reason at all. Maybe it’s wishful thinking that an “insider’s guide” from a former Marvel editor would address this, but I’ll take Scott McCloud’s vision of increasingly diverse representation over Andy Schmidt’s boy’s club any day.

Sadly, despite being a recovering alcholic, the author spends the most of the book trying to sound like his binge drinking, freeloading days were a good time, justified by his career choice, and not really so detrimental to those around him. He finally overcomes his fear of “becoming boring” and gets help.