So Comics

So comics. To be honest, I never read comics as a kid and I really don't know why. I never really read many picture books either. Once I got to the point where I didn't need the little pictures over the words for me to figure out what the words meant, I never touched a book with pictures on every other page again( besides when I look at them to reminisce on the good times).  I started to read books that would grow my knowledge and challenge my vocabulary. Fast forward to junior and I'm reading for the first time a graphic novel or a comic. I found the plot and symbolism very interesting, so when we  had two minutes of English class left, I decided to glance at the beginning of the book. Soon I wasn't able to put Maus down. I continued to read the book through physics class, one of my favorite classes this year. Usually, when we have a discussion during class or my friends start talking to me, I'm able to pull myself away from even my favorite books with a little bit of effort, but with this book this wasn't the case. I'd close the book, but something kept forcing me to open the book right up again. Why was that? I've realized that it's because of how much depth the pictures add to the story, and how because of the way that the words are integrated into the pictures, I felt like someone was telling me a story rather than feeling like I was reading a book. To me, it  felt like I had discovered a whole new form of reading and telling stories.

So why hadn't I read graphic novels before, or been introduced to them. I believe it is because that in society reading a book with pictures is seen as childish. Something you need to grow out of. I feel like there could very well be a situation somewhere in the world where an adult tells a child, " Get your nose out of that comic and read a real book". Well I'm saying that graphic novels are very much real books. They accomplish the same things, just in different ways. While books leave some of the visuals of the character and scenes up to interpretation in order for the audience to create a scene that is meaningful to them, comics show the audience the story through pictures while leaving some the nuanced meanings up to the interpretation of the audience. You see in books, it's usually pretty obvious to understand why something happened the way it did in novels, either through the protagonist thoughts or a omniscient narrator explaining how something happened. However in a graphic novel you just follow the little scenes and draw the connections yourself, find the nuanced meanings yourself.

Reading a graphic novel doesn't show that someone can't read a book without pictures. It just shows someone whose reading something that is also visually stimulating. Many different kinds of art forms are meant to be visually stimulating. Paintings, Movies, Theater, Dance, and even orchestras performing are something that we take in with our eyes. With just our eyes we are able to find meaning and emotion in these art forms. So why not accept the combination of pictures and words in order to to add a new layer of depth to reading and writing as a art form.