Figure 1

What are Graphic Stories?

Graphic stories are side-by-side (juxtaposed) pictures arranged in sequence. Just as novelists select words to tell stories, authors of graphic stories use illustrations to show stories.

Before the advent of the printing press in 1440, visual stories were told through other media such as knots, paintings, stained glass, statues, pottery, deerskins, or fabrics such as the French Bayeux Tapestry, a cloth of 70 metres that depicts the 1066 Norman (French) conquest of England.

Why do we tell Graphic Stories?

Historically, emperors used pictures for propaganda and to manipulate public opinion. Images were a means of advertising power. For example, a general depicted exaggerated victories through statues or paintings on impressive stones. In addition to beautifying cities, ziggurats, pyramids, and obelisks justified authority and power. In other instances, visual stories in paintings, icons, and glass transmitted beliefs to populations who had become illiterate (lost the ability to read Greek or Latin, cuneiform, or hieroglyphics).

In the past, graphic stories were seen as more entertaining, quicker, and simpler for audiences to view. Today, because of the Internet, cell phone cameras, and globalization, pictures increasingly convey meaning to all cultures. Batman, for example, has become a worldwide icon. Similarly, many Japanese graphic stories have become popular in the West.

In an effort to make them more approachable to the novice, many older written texts, including many Shakespearean plays, novels, and even history books, have been adapted into graphic novels. Various graphic novels have been adapted to film, such as Persepolis, Ghost World, Watchmen, The Losers, 300, and V for Vendetta.