Literature of Comics and the Graphic Novel

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud is a comic book about comic books. It explains not only the history of comic books, but also teaches the viewers how to read and understand them. Anyone who brushes off comics as being sorely for young readers should definitely give this novel a look. Comics are a medium of which contain very different styles, and in this case, it is very important not to judge a book by its cover. Comics as an art form has endless potential, as seen through the wide variety and expanse genres of comics. The first section of Understanding Comics describes what comics are, which is sequential art. Scott McCloud expands on this notion and goes into a lot more depth. Sequential art could also be applied to moving pictures or animation; one image shown after the other. Understanding Comics explains the unique traits that make comics so different from any other medium. It is a truly visual form that you have to piece together-- panels ...

Shaun Tan's  The Arrival  shows us, without words, our reality of immigration through a fictional world.  The graphic novel tells the story of a magical but dangerous world and a man’s journey to an unknown land in order to seek a better life for him and his family. The protagonist finds himself in a mysterious new world of foreign customs, peculiar animals and indecipherable languages where he must push through any social, lingual or cultural barriers to forge a new life for him and his family. Through the power of only using pictures it easily conveys the amount of passing time across, as well as conversations between characters and even flashbacks and memories from other characters in the story. The art is monochrome; so, it has also removed the medium of color to in any way help get the story across. Through tones of golds, browns, and blacks, Tan portrays this magical world, the emotion, and the progression through soft shading and beautiful imagery. The underlying ...