College textbook reinvented as graphic novel

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ... a graphic novel coming to the rescue of cash-strapped college students? According to one business school professor, textbooks that look more like comic books could revolutionize the way students are taught -- and save them a bundle in the process.

Jeremy Short, a management professor at Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Tex., is the developer and lead author of a pair of management textbooks written in graphic novel format. The books -- which are priced at an amazingly low $15 a pop -- chronicle the adventures of business school slacker-student-turned-entrepreneur Atlas Black as he learns how to apply his classroom lessons to real-life business situations.

In a phone interview with WalletPop, Short told us that the graphic novel format has been hugely popular with students: The visual style is engaging, while the narrative format helps them better retain the information. "There's a stigma associated with comics for a lot of people," Short acknowledges, but he points out the format has a lot going for it.