Having discussed panel and page layout in the preceding chapter, we next turn to matters of style and the issues that graphic novels present because of their hybrid nature of combing words and images. One needs new critical tools to better understand graphic novels, and this book offers a series of summations to assist students theorize works that, at present, most of them read without reference to an explicit mode or method.

From style to graphiation

Drawing and style is an obvious, although sometimes neglected, facet of all graphic novels. Moreover, style is, in whatever context one studies it, a very complex notion. First, even if one reduces, for simplicity’s sake, style to visual style – or more specifically to drawing style, leaving aside narrative style, for instance – the number of questions remains very high. For example, when introducing the McSweeney’s issue on graphic narratives, Chris Ware writes:

It is no doubt complex, too, because style is also often assimilated to one single aspect: the almost biological expression of the author, whose body is made manifest through his or her personal style.