Re:Comics as real literature (Score 5, Insightful)

Thanks for the comment. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of "Reading Comics." I'd actually argue--and this is an argument that's gotten me in some trouble, so feel free to dispute it--that comics are not literature (in the same way that they're not film or sculpture or cuisine), and that reading them as if they're supposed to work the same ways as prose literature is missing the point. Comics are drawn, and their essence is the fact that they're a kind of narrative in a form that's come from an artist's eye and hand. To put it differently: "good writing" in the context of prose is different from "good writing" in the context of comics (or film, or whatever other medium you'd like to substitute), and writing is only a part--a significant part, but not the main part--of how comics work.