Graphic novels are awesome!

Just watched this video by two graphic novel writer/illustrators and it made me rethink how I read graphic novels vs novels. They spoke about how illustrators block panels to make you see things a certain way. Things that are called gutters, which are the things that break panels up, can make things more intense if they are dark rather than white. They can also cause fear if they are not in a straight line, but rather a squiggly line.
While novels can take a long time describing things, graphic novels can do the same thing in a few panels.

In the book Estranged by Ethan Aldridge, who was one of the speakers, he does just that. The main character is in the human world (although he finds out he is not human) and the second main character is in the underground fairy world (where he finds out he is human). When the book takes place in the human world, the gutters are white and the pictures are brighter. However in the underground fairy world, the gutters are darker as well as the images.

By creating it that way, it encourages the reader to have certain feelings depending on how he has laid it out. We own this new book, so check it out!
I will not even start to talk about manga. That makes you think in completely different ways: the culture, the language (even though its in English, it is sometimes worded differently) and since the Japanese write from right to left, the books are "backwards". This makes kids think in a totally different way which, in my opinion, is amazing.
Please check out our graphic novels. I may be a little biased since I buy them, but I think we have a pretty sweet collection!