In reading this graphic novel, I found myself engaging in a different kind of analysis — instead of analyzing what the story might mean, the symbols, etc., I found myself just trying to figure out the story, period (in some places).

I’m not sure of the parameters for graphic novels, but there was more text in this book than I was expecting, and often, it still wasn’t enough. I don’t know if I’m just dense, but at times, I was asking myself questions like, “Is that Nat or someone else?” or “Am I supposed to recognize that person?” It was a little frustrating, but in trying to overcome that confusion, I spent more time looking at the images, so maybe it wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

After finishing the book, I find myself wondering what the author hopes a reader takes away from a graphic novel. Obviously, K. Baker’s skills are in drawing, but they are also in storytelling. So is the aim the same as an author’s aim for any traditional novel, and Baker is just using his particular skill set to achieve that? I have to admit that I didn’t feel myself becoming as absorbed as I usually do when reading a traditional novel; like Nikki, I also love words, and part of my love for language and literature is appreciating how authors use words to make me feel a certain way. I missed that in reading Nat Turner.

But I try not to be a snob, and I did enjoy the book in other ways. The drawings were superb (I thought), and I thought, as some others have mentioned, that the characters’ facial expressions really did a lot of the talking — Baker did well there.

I also found it interesting to note what Baker chose to include as actual words, and what he chose to tell strictly through images. I think the meat of the story — the killings — was overpowered by the textual commentary — perhaps that shows the limitations of this genre.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. I would be interested to read a couple of other graphic novels with radically different story lines to see how other kinds of stories are depicted in images, and also how other graphic novelists choose (or don’t choose) to include actual text.