Written dialects are widely perceived as illegitimate and non-standard written forms of Chinese, despite their long history. Its inferior status is partly derived from their intimate associations with various forms of popular culture. The close relationship between written Cantonese, and the articulation of various forms of popular culture, remains intact in Hong Kong. As there is a high presence of written Cantonese in locally-produced comic books, the local comic book industry has been further stigmatised. It has been accused of being a major cause of a perceived decline in language standards, with reference to written Chinese in particular. In the thesis, I question the 'language defects' thesis and the 'bad story, bad language' logic, as proposed by prescriptivists and critics of local comic books. My analysis of the language of local comic books shows that both Modern Written Chinese and written Cantonese have been used in the telling of stories in comic books. Their patterns of use are found to be strongly correlated with a set of extra-linguistic variables such as the nature of the text, the genre to which the comic book belongs, the historical setting, which all have some degree of influence on the selection of a particular language code. In this way, the 'bad story, bad language' logic fails to work well. Instead of subverting the existing hegemony of Modern Written Chinese, the patterns of language use in comic books are, in fact, extremely conservative in orientation. In the interviews I have conducted with the regular comic book readers, and practitioners in the comic book industry, most respondents replied that it was ridiculous to suggest that the patterns of language use in comic books would severely impair students' competence in the Chinese language. Rather, voices from the student population assert that it is the out-dated syllabus and the uninspiring nature of the education system in Hong Kong that should be held responsible for students' loss of interest in learning the language. To a certain extent, it is true that the aspiring status of Cantonese in the past twenty years implies a relative reduction in the 'power' of other languages, but this has not necessarily led to a declining language standard. If educators actually made greater efforts to deal with linguistic reality and recognise the status of written Cantonese within the culture of Hong Kong, instead of simply stigmatising it, the linguistic ability of the next generation might be less likely to decline.