Over the course of the 20th century, new mediums and artistic forms have surfaced and been adopted by contemporary artists to compose various types of visual language. Artists have found many creative formats to tell stories and connect with the viewer on an emotional level. One such non-traditional format is the graphic novel, which seeks to combine art and words or, in some cases, remain wordless in order to tell a fictional or non-fictional story. In fact, the graphic novel has been quietly slipping onto bookshelves in libraries and bookstores since the 1960s. Will Eisner, author of Comics and Sequential Art: Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, and one of the most influential graphic novelists, observes that the emergence of an era greatly dependant on visual communication and the acceleration of graphic technology, dictates that the evolving storytelling format be given serious consideration as an art form. In addition, it has been argued that the art of graphic novels embodies the principles and ideals of the 20th century artistic movements considered ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art (James Carter, 2011). With the growing popularity of the graphic novel, there has also been a rise in the level of artistry that has legitimatised this storytelling form, which was once marginalised as ‘artistic insignificance’.
While comic books have been around since the 1930s, the modern graphic novel evolved gradually, surfacing as a genre by the 1960s or ’70s. Now graphic novels are an art form that finally has adequate tools to provide a story of spontaneity that can be viewed by all ages. And they are doing a mighty fine job. Combining the influences of art historical forms and movements, this type of novel... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. Penguin, 1980, p. 74.
