The great Jeet Heer is interviewed by Tom Spurgeon. Read how Heer went from remedial reader status to genius historian and ladies’ man using the power of comics!

A desire to master English was a big part of what made comics attractive; they seemed like a fast-track to literacy. The school board had labeled me a “remedial reader”; ashamed of this stigma, I tried to learn as much English on my own as quickly as I could.