To say comics are not educational is to say van gogh's paintings are uneducational, or mark twain's novels, or mozart's symphanies, or byron's poems, or ansel adams' photos. It may not be their main reason for being, but we can learn from them.

As for my comment about education in America - thought I had better clarify what I meant - and my comments are based on conversations with people who have been through the US education system. It seems the US education system is good at teaching kids the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, but once they know that, the use they put it to is so insular and nationalistic the general population of the US has little or no knowledge of the world beyond their borders, and that is often the border of their state. I know people can generalise from one story, but I recently (this year) heard of a young guy (I think he is 19) in California who went to Oregon (which for those who don't know is just the next state north of California) and he had to ask if he was still in the USA!