Comics Discussion Guides

Lead thought-provoking discussions through graphic novels. Use one of our toolkits to help guide lessons at your public library, academic institution, or book club. These toolkits are one of the many resources offered by Get Graphic! with the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library

Superman Discussion Guides

Being that Cleveland, Ohio, is the home of Superman, The Ohio Center for the Book partnered with the Rust Belt Humanities Lab at Ursuline College in fall 2023 to celebrate Superman’s Cleveland: Lineage and Legacy, a weeks-long series of events celebrating the first superhero’s 85th birthday. The discussion group toolkits provided here represent the work of our guests who participated in Superman’s Cleveland, including Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Mark Waid, Sina Grace, Sarah Kuhn, and Laura Siegel Larson. Additionally, one bonus toolkit is included of Gene Luan Yang’s Superman Smashes the Klan, one of our favorite recent Superman works honoring Yang’s appointment in 2016 as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress of which the Ohio Center for the Book is an affiliate. We encourage librarians, teachers, book clubs, and independent readers to use these to explore more about the world’s first superhero, born right here in Ohio. Click on each title to download a PDF of the toolkit.

book cover

Classic Comics: Expand Your Idea of the Medium

About the toolkits

The toolkits provided here, created by Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Valentino Zullo, Ph.D., in 2020/21, are modeled after the Get Graphic! with the Ohio Center for the Book discussions hosted at Cleveland Public Library (home of the Ohio Center for the Book) since 2014. We thought it was time to share what we have learned to promote the study of comics with other libraries, classrooms, book clubs, independent readers, and anyone else that wants an education in comics! The toolkits offered here represent some of our favorites as well as some we consider among the most significant works of the medium.

book cover

Each of the toolkits is designed to help anyone to lead a discussion for new comics readers as well as those for those more acquainted with the medium and includes:

  • a short description of the book
  • a biography of the author
  • background material to provide context
  • general discussion questions
  • supplemental questions derived from interviews with the creator(s) and scholarly writings about the books and associated topics
  • a sampling of online videos and other materials connected to the book’s topic
  • a suggested reading list that will lead to the next book discussion!

We hope you will have as much fun in your discussions as we did! Share these toolkits far and wide, and let us know how they worked for you.

A quick note on language: Following Scott McCloud, we refer to comics with a plural noun and singular verb (i.e., Comics is… not Comics are…). We will refer to these books as comics because this form is a medium of its own, not a genre. Additionally, as a number of the books for which we have created toolkits are autobiographical, referring to them as graphic novels, would be a misnomer. Though, we freely admit that graphic novel has become a catch-all term that many use, so go with what feels best for you! As long as you’re reading, we’re more than fine with whatever you call them!