I have to start off by saying that after my recent indoctrination into the world of graphic novels (thanks to Sample’s Postmodernism class two semesters ago), I am totally sold on the idea of graphic novels as literature. I know that a lot of you would not agree with this statement, so I’m going to try to make my case. First of all, we are mistaken to think that literature has ever solely relied on words. The same kinds of “gutters” that McCloud describes exist in more traditional forms of poetry, novels, and short stories—and we would be remiss to ignore the importance of ambiguity in higher-level literature. That alone, of course, cannot prove my point, but I will say that the confusion a number of us felt (myself included) in reading Nat Turner relies on our lack of comfort, as some of you have said before, with this kind of artistic ambiguity.

A better point might be that we are so accustomed to traditional forms of the written word that we only accept newer or more challenging styles after the gurus of our era deem them respectable. For example, had someone like e. e. cummings or William Carlos Williams come along at the wrong point in history and tried to uproot all of the traditional structures then associated with the “written word,” particularly with poetry, he likely would have been ignored. When we literary folk (as with others in other fields) find ourselves uncomfortable, we often struggle to accept the changing nature of art (and literature is just one form of art).

Perhaps graphic novels are more art than literature—but that’s where I get particularly confused. If literature is art, and graphic novels can be considered art, why aren’t we acknowledging the overlap between a narrative told only in words and one told through a combination of words and pictures? The same overlap appears in drama. Drama relies on actions (which may or may not be included in the playwright’s written stage directions) to tell the story. Why then would we scoff at the idea of pictures helping to tell the story when most of us would consider drama to be literature when it so consistently relies on actions in addition to words?

Part of the problem might stem from reading something like Nat Turner as a first example of a graphic novel. Nat Turner relies so little on the written word, instead producing images that move from scene to scene, or aspect to aspect, which is probably particularly jarring for people who have little experience with anything other than (my childhood favorites) Archie and his crew, Jughead, Veronica, and Betty. Likewise, the graphic nature of this graphic novel (love the pun) can be disconcerting, though I share Tim’s sentiment that Nat Turner’s actions sort of balance out (or at least reflect) the horrors of slavery, which as a practice perpetuated the countless deaths of innocents for centuries. Because I knew what I was getting into with graphic literature, I was actually eager for this reading, despite the heavy nature of the subject. Having basically started out my graphic novel experience with The Shooting War and In the Shadow of No Towers, I was hungry for more– and the more controversial, the better! Frankly, I have been really looking forward to this week, and I can understand that others may not share my opinion that graphic novels are literature (or perhaps even worthwhile), but hopefully, we can all manage to learn something about this kind of art and how it can add to our teaching experience.

Last thing, I promise. If I ever teach creative writing again (and even maybe in some of my regular classes), I’d like to teach excerpts from McCloud’s book. I especially like the attention to “gutters” and “closure”—I think higher-level and/or creative students could really benefit from paying more attention to the nuances of comic arts and perhaps apply those same kinds of analyses to written literature, you know the kind we all agree  on.  In spite of all my appreciation for the new kind of literature (which is really not all that new at all), I know that College Board is nowhere near putting a comic strip on the AP test.  Still, as a teacher, I see the merits of graphic novels– and as a person, I enjoy reading them.  They just seem easier– and yet sometimes, as was the case with Nat Turner, they really aren’t.