Chapter 4 - Novel Values

Summary

This chapter shows how graphic novels have not only become more colorful over the last two decades but also more visually complex. The chapter surveys discussions of the graphic novel’s literary complexity, from Richard Corben’s early Bloodstar to Alan Moore’s Watchmen. This reappropriation of a modernist strategy models itself on the rise of the novel but also reacts to a long-term audience decline for comics. Section 4.2 builds on recent uptakes of complexity in digital literary and digital film studies to advance computational measurements that combine image and text recognition. The final pages return to Moore and Alison Bechdel to assess the relevance of complexity for the popular success and cultural prestige of individual comic books.