Comics a gateway to fight illiteracy

But for the past 30 years Genesis has been waving the comic book flag high and the Genesis Foundation for Literacy has been distributing these books to encourage reading and battle illiteracy.

Sunday Newsday chatted with the foundation’s chairman last week, Hafeez Amin, about their work, starting with how he got into comics himself.

Amin recalled that his mother bought his very first comic before he could even read, a “Phantom” comic from the now defunct Gold Key company back in the mid 1960s. This spurred him to begin collecting comics and in five decades would amass thousands. He explained that he always preferred Marvel over DC - he only collected Batman from the latter - because of the interconnectivity of the universe.

His favourite book is the superhero team Fantastic Four while his favourite solo character is Spider-Man. He is also a fan of Black Panther, Iron Man and Hulk. “I am a little selfish when it comes to Marvel characters.

Growing up they were my best friends,” he explained.

While attending St Mary’s College he had just one other friend that read comics. In 1986 Genesis Foundation comics dealership was founded at 1 Rosalino Street, Woodbrook, partly to be a place where Amin and others could discuss the comics they love and have a fellowship.

He quoted iconic comic book writer Stan Lee that the art form is “our modern mythology” though there was a time when it was considered “sub-literature”.

He added that Genesis has taken comics out of the “dark ages” and brought it to where it is.

He recalled that they held their first comic book convention of “Comic Con” at Holiday Inn in 1999. They were expecting 200 people but thousands showed up and they had to shut down the hotel. “People could not get in,” he added.

Also that year they held their first Anime City convention and helped introduce anime locally.

He reported that Genesis had made representation to the Ministry of Education for comics to be used in remedial reading for slow learners. He stressed that comic books are not a “panacea” but creates motivation for youngsters to read and graduate to novels.

“It is a good gateway,” he added.

He said that you must ensure the comics are age appropriate, as there are some that are more graphic and have “colourful language”.

He also explained that reading comics help to build vocabulary and it helped him personally.

Amin cited one case a girl was not reading and her mother tried giving her some comics and she became motivated. He said that she can graduate from comics to novels like Harry Potter.

From 1999-2000 the Genesis Foundation successfully petitioned the National Library to accept comics into their Young Adult Library and Amin said that they were the most popular among the youths.

“Now comic books is a real thing.

Now when you liming you want a geek in your crowd to explain (things). So geek is the new cool. I’m proud to be a geek,” he said.

Genesis also donated comic books to school libraries, gave them as book prizes to schools and distributed them to the public as part of the global free comic book day.

Amin recalled that children showing their library card would get double the amount of free comics.

He said that Genesis continues to grow from a literacy foundation into doing a lot of charitable works, including toy distribution for Christmas.

He said that comics is a generational thing and comic book movies do so well because the love of the character can be passed from father to child and, with very old characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, even grandparents will be familiar.

Amin lamented, however, that with video games, cable and the Internet comics have become less popular.

“Not a nice thing comics dying. Nobody reading it,” he added.

He recalled that he gave a young lady a couple hundred comic books for a school, and out of a class of 36 children none had ever read a comic book.

“It is one of the essential joys of being a child,” he stressed.

On Genesis he said the membership is a few hundred, with a core membership for the past 25 years. He added that some children have come in from parents who were members and left. He stressed that he is only a “cog in the wheel” and it is a team effort.

“I never thought we would still be here for 30 years,” he said.

He pointed out that they have done such good for so many years but do not advertise or solicit funds. On the future of Genesis Amin said they will be doing “more of the same” and do not plan to deviate from the formula.