Marginalized Childhoods and Comic Book Writers: What is the Connection?

I wrote a paper for my English 109 course, Graphic Novels, with the above title. I worked on it during Spring Break and submitted it early. Imagine. A student submitting something early is nearly unhead of! I put a lot of work into this and loved the outcome. Here's my thesis:

"The ideal childhood is one of caring parents, innocents, and fun, but not all children experience this ideology. Children do not have the power needed to improve their conditions because they are young dependents. Comics, a medium sometimes thought of as childish, often have child characters struggling to better their lives. This essay uses four graphic novels from different genres in order to examine how the ideology of childhood is not always true. I argue that children, who normally have little power to change their lives, and the authors who write about them become empowered by the literary, artistic, and sometimes fictional tools that graphic novels enable. "


The four books I used were:

1. Barry, Lynda. What It Is. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2008.
2. Bechdel, Allison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. New York: Mariner Books, 2006.
3. McGruder, Aaron. The Boondocks: All The Rage. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
4. Moore, Allan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1986.

The reason I'm blogging about this is because my professors gave a comment and it really made me happy. I also applied a lot of sociological theory to my paper but did it in lay terms. This means the last 4 years of my life weren't meaningless as I have proof that I'm good at analyzing the world. Now all that's left is to save it!

"Excellent work Philip - you could definitely make this longer and use it for a writing sample for graduate studies"