Who's Reading This?

The Patty-Jo and Ginger editorials stick out from the other comics that we have read for a number of obvious reasons. The dialogue, however, is where Jackie Ormes diverges significantly. I was surprised by the blunt, uncensored social commentary that was coming from a little girl. I think I enjoyed it because the direct, sometimes politically incorrect humor seemed slightly unfitting for a girl of her size. It’s the same reason why watching a child swear is comical, but hearing an adult swear is routine. Patty-Jo dishes out progressive, authoritative observation to her older sister, who is continuously left speechless. On the other hand, Patty-Jo is the perfect figure to illustrate the constraining social constructions of the time. Jackie Ormes had an important message to share/comment on, and a child without a filter was the perfect tool to communicate through. What would have happened if Jackie Ormes tried to convey her message directly, without the comic? Would it be received the same way it was? Probably not.

I wouldn’t call these comics explicit, but I still think they were slightly risqué for the time. This left me with a critical question: who’s the reader? If a mother didn’t want her child reading SuspenStories, would she let them read this? Would children understand what Patty-Jo was trying to say? There are so many visual puns and topics relating to current events, that children might be lost, save the image. This lead me to believe that, unlike most of the comics we have read, Patty-Jo and Ginger was specifically designed for an older reader base, which is ironic given that this is the first comic series that consistently has a child as a main character. Perhaps this is reflected in the way many of the illustrations are drawn: from a higher vantage point, as if an adult was standing behind Ginger, watching in on the scene.