DUBAI: Comic creators Jamie Smart, John Patrick Green and Mo Abedin joined the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai this week to discuss the growing role of comics in classrooms and how graphic novels are reshaping children’s relationship with reading.

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Smart is the author of the bestselling “Bunny vs. Monkey” series, Green is known for his popular “The InvestiGators” books about crime-solving alligators, and Abedin is the UAE-based creator of the sci-fi graphic novel “Solarblader."

A key point shared by all three speakers was that comics should be valued as a complete art form rather than a stepping stone to prose. Abedin described comics as “a very high art form,” explaining that the medium taught readers how to process complex ideas such as emotion, empathy and culture through visual storytelling.

He added that comics allowed readers to slow down and engage on their own terms because “the reader is also able to control the pace of the narrative.”