Graphic Novels as Literature

Read graphic novels with attention to how images, panels, and gutters create meaning.

Graphic novels and comics are a serious literary form, with works ranging from memoir and history to journalism and fantasy. Reading them well means attending to both words and images, and to how they interact. Panels frame moments; their size and shape control pacing, with many small panels slowing time and a single full-page panel creating impact. The gutter, the blank space between panels, is where readers infer what happens between moments, an act of imagination that makes the reader a participant.

Sometimes words and images say the same thing; sometimes they contradict each other, creating irony. Consider an original page: a caption reads 'It was the best summer of my life,' while the panels show a child sitting alone at a lunch table, then alone on a bus. The gap between text and image tells the truth the narrator will not. When reading, slow down on full-page spreads, notice changes in color or style, and ask what the images say that the words leave out.

• 1Words and images interact to make meaning.
• 2Panel size and layout control pacing.
• 3The gutter invites readers to infer.
• 4Text and image can contradict, creating irony.