Prompt 49: Hopefully I get an 'E' for Effort

 * I am really sorry that I wasn't quite sure how to do this prompt. Love some feedback on whether or not I did it somewhat right. Thanks! *

  

   I honestly don’t understand the difference between a “graphic novel” and a comic. I have always thought that a comic is a graphic novel, so what is a graphic novel? Is that a novel in which there is no writing, only pictures? Or is there writing, just not a whole lot? So since I do not know the difference, I will have to go off of my assumption that a graphic novel does not have very many words, but rather allows the drawings to speak for themselves. And if that is my assumption, then I would have to say that using a comic format is more effective for memoir writing than the graphic novels.

    I am a person who prefers to have an author describe something to me with words and pictures so that the story can be better understood. I feel that by having more pictures then words, the story line can be misinterpreted, and the author’s whole point for creating his/her piece go unnoticed. It’s kind of like the excerpt from Craig Thompson’s Blankets, there were more drawings then writing, and I got lost amongst the chaos. For the most part, I had no idea where the story was heading and how it was getting there. All that is memorable about the piece is that the drawings were much more detailed then the two previous comics we were asked to read.  It was much more enjoyable to read Miriam Engelberg’s Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person because she was so detailed in the descriptions of the art. In each of the comic squares, there were always more writing then pictures, and granted the stick figures she drew were not of the best quality, but at least the story she was telling had direction and understanding. She even subtitled sections just so the readers could follow along more smoothly.

   So maybe an incredibly visual person would prefer a memoir in “graphic novel” format, but I would rather read for myself the descriptions that set the scene of the comic. I guess it’s relative to the person.