Comics and Spanish

When I was a kid, Sunday morning was always a magical time, when my parents would give me my allowance money of a few pesetas, which always made me feel almost like a millionaire – or at least loaded with excitement. Then I’d go catch the Sunday matinee at the town theater, often a Cantinflas movie, pick up a paper cone of sun flower seeds to snack on during the movie… and buy a tebeo (comic). 

Tebeo - Cómic

The word tebeo has become part of the Spanish language, and is included in the Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary, where it resides with its English counterpart cómic.  

One of the few good things that comes with age is that the older we get, the more experience we accrue. I still remember those illustrated magazines with the title TBO on them, a clever play on words –it was the title of the book, but sounding out the letters themselves could be understood as “te veo” (I see you), a clear reference to the main character in the comic. Over time, the name tebeo ended up being used to refer to all similar products made for kids, while the loan word cómic ended up being used for graphic novels made for adults.    

I remember a campaign to promote reading from years ago, many years ago, that used a slogan that went something like “Donde hay un tebeo habrá un libro” (where there’s a comic there’s a book). I must admit that the slogan made a strong impact on me, because I haven’t been able to, nor would I want to, tear myself away from books or from anything else in Gutenburg’s galaxy. My house is full of books, old tebeos, cómics, and all types of publications printed on paper. Luckily we’re not allergic to dust…

Watching my daughters follow in our footsteps in terms of our reading addiction, sometimes I wonder, in our Spanish classes, if we place too much importance on reading written texts, in books I mean, and if we’re not ignoring other rich and rewarding reading format options such as the tebeo.

The language used in childeren’s comics is of course complicated (a kid’s vision of the world is much different than an adult’s), but it’s also true that the attractive graphics and the engaging storylines help readers follow along.

Mafalda and others

In class I’ve used Mafalda comic strips a few times (about the wonderful Argentine girl of the same name and her friends and family) as an example of the fantastic Spanish spoken in Argentina, which highlight examples of voseo, different word meanings…

Some comics such as Asterix have internationally known (at least in Europe) stories that are carefully translated into different languages, making them fascinating reading material that can be used in the classroom with intermediate and advanced students. 

Mortadelo y Filemón, T.I.A. agents have become an integral part of Spanish culture for various generations of Spaniards. Their appearance on the big screen has helped their image and stories endure even longer.

When teaching colloquial Spanish, an inevitable resource is the magazine El Jueves, which is like a dictionary of slang and informal Spanish that is updated weekly.

Using tebeos and cómics as a Spanish teaching resource is not just an option to consider; in my opinion it is almost an obligation for teachers, to expose their students to the richness of Spanish… in all its contexts.