Emotional Story Telling

Comics, graphic novels, traditional stories, and novels all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Novels excel at plot and continuous action. Since no time must be dedicated to illustration, novels are able to convey prolonged scenes of finely detailed action more succinctly. Comics, on the other hand, have a significant advantage in capturing the emotions of the characters. In a novel, the emotions of a scene can be captured through beautiful descriptions; however, the image must ultimately be visualized within the mind of the reader for its full effect. Since comics also contain a visual component, they have an advantage in character portrayals. While emotions can surely be captured through skilled writing, there is something to be said for actually seeing the emotions directly on the character's face rather than simply reading a description of them. Somehow, the visual component carries with it a much greater impact than the words. The options for how to do this are also limitless. In a novel, there are only so many ways for an author to describe feelings of despair. In a comic, however, the artist can draw despair in any number of ways, from facial expressions, to color choices, to visual representations, or, possibly by drawing nothing at all. This unique form of expression, in my opinion, allows the reader to experience the characters more closely. In this way, I think the comic form has the edge not only in the emotions of the characters, but in character development as a whole.