Anin, Marry Joyce A. Occasional Paper No.

2
BSED 2-1B February 11, 2020
ENGL 2107

Writing is a fascinating thing to do and if putting colors and pictures in a book makes
it more interesting for its readers. Example for this is a graphic novel, a long-form
type of comic, wherein it is published as a book. However, the real question here is,
whether a graphic novel is literature or not?
Literature being defined according to Lombardi (2020), a term used to describe
written and sometimes spoken material, which commonly refers to work of creative
imagination, including poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, and at some point
journalism, and song. It encompasses the written work of arts out there. Defending
graphic novel as a work out of literature, yes, because they also use words, being
included to publish written books and taught to students as a children’s literature. As
an example of a graphic novel is “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, where there are
illustration of pictures about the diary of a kid. The book is popular to the readers,
and an eye catching for children and also for adults who like to read words and art
type of a book.
Though, a graphic novel aren’t 100% words and therefore not pure literary form
doesn’t make any less serious and relevant (Wampler, 2015). We can still consider a
graphic novel as a literature because it contributes to make a mainstream for
literature. A bare-bones literature, simply because they contain prose (Ryan, 2018).
Well, being crafted with art doesn’t lessen the literary value of a graphic novel. There
are known and recognized book like graphic novel, rather than, the written novels out
there. Further, it is literature because it is within or included to the children's literature
being taught to the course.
It is not about the way of how it has been crafted but, the story within the book. The
purpose of its production and value of it by the readers is what a literature should be.
A work of imagination represents the idea of an individual that makes a metaphor of
the reality and can be considered as a literature.