When Garan Madeiros was a student at Warwick Academy, reading comic books was frowned upon and he had to hide his Marvel magazines not to be scolded by teachers.

Two decades later, graphic novels are celebrated as a rich storytelling vehicle enjoyed by many and used in the classroom by educators to support literacy and other subjects.

This is what Françoise Wolffe, librarian at Warwick Academy and the Graphic Novel Festival’s organiser, wished to highlight during the event, from January 22 to March 4.

“The goal of this literacy campaign was to expose our senior students to comic books from various cultures but also encourage them to create their own work,” Mrs Wolffe said.

With this purpose in mind, comic book workshops were offered to budding artists and writers and Mr Madeiros, now a professional comic book author, was invited back to the school to teach students invaluable skills and provide them with tips to market themselves as an artist in this field. Similarly, Sami Lill, Uber Super Duper creative director, inspired young authors to tell a simple story with basic characters in a comic strip format teaching them how to use “camera angles” to make the visual elements more appealing and humour for a more powerful narrative.

The festival was also punctuated by classroom presentations to introduce modern foreign language students to Belgian and Argentinian characters, teach Shakespeare through graphic novels or invite IB students to discuss stereotyping in Tintin.

A team of IB students interested in current events and human rights issues went on a field trip to the Peter Woolcock exhibition and attended a talk by MP Walton Brown on how to decrypt political cartoons.

The festival culminated with a grub day, during which all were invited to dress up as their favourite comic book characters.

There was also a comic book fair showcasing Bermuda Bookstore, Nerd Gear Bermuda and Comic Stop.