Frank in The River was a surrealist wordless comic which works surprisingly well, there are excellent uses of visual clues in order to progress the story with more than just showing us, it did a good job of giving the reader two plus two instead of four. By letting the reader figure out what is going on, it really makes the reader much more involved in the story than if it simply force fed the information. This odd story really works well on it's own as a self contained scenario; totally unrealistic yet still believable because it follows a set of rules the story sets up.
What can one say about Maus? It truly is a masterpiece in the world of graphic novels, it depicts the characters in a very real and natural way with believable dialogue (probably due to the fact that much of it is actual dialogue) as covered in the narrative. I was almost unable to put this piece down from start to finish, while it may cover very serious subject matter and devastating themes it manages to keep things from being too heavy or overbearing emotionally. Throughout the story we get not only the story of Art's family during the holocaust but also we get a sneak peek into his day to day life as well, his personal struggles contrast quite well with the rest of the narrative as well as keeping things grounded in reality. The story's sense of realism is quite amazing considering all the characters are drawn as animals which somewhat detaches the reader from the characters but because they are so well written we are able to still maintain our connection to them. All in a...
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