WORDS AND GRAPHICS PART 2

Many notable graphic novels do have substance, and the public is starting to recognize their achievements, not only in the field of drawn art, but also in the field of written works. Dylan Horrocks, an award-winning graphic novelist and comic artist, and a University of Auckland Creative New Zealand Literary Fellow for 2006 recognizes the graphic novels' increasing popularity. Horrocks notes that the graphic novels have become an increasingly important literary form with many writers and artists choosing comics as a means to create serious literary material. More and more people are actually starting to look past the graphic novels' "comic" past and considering the medium as a new form of legitimate written literature.
What does literature actually mean? The common noun "literature", refers to any form of writing. However, the proper noun "Literature", refers to a written work of exceptional intellectual caliber. Giving emphasis on the word "written".
Traditional fiction literature has always been all about the words. Graphic novels dispute the assumption that only words can move the heart and challenge the mind as an excpetional piece of literature can.
Graphic novels have achieved the level of traditional fiction, enriching both mind and imagination through the effective use of its picture and text components to tell a story. People who criticize graphic novels for the lack of narration and undue focus on conversation are missing the point. Drawings are as much a story-telling device as sentences and paragraphs. As Eric James Shanower, an American comic artist and writer simply puts it, "Writing is an art, just as drawing is."