The Literary Worth of Comic Books

Comic Book Movie discusses the value of comic books.

From the piece...

Comics Can Have Strong Narrative

The narrative is, of course, the prime factor in storytelling. Without the narrative, there is no story. But stories are stories. Whether you’re reading A Tale of two Cities or Y: The Last Man, or watching The Shawshank Redemption, a good story can be told in any medium at all. When individual aspects of a narrative are analysed, one can see that the nature of the comics medium lends itself very well to the telling of good stories.

Plot – While plot is not the be all and end all of narrative (On the Road by Kerouac has no discernible plot whatsoever), a poor plot can certainly undermine the value of the narrative (Stephanie Myer’s Twilight, for example). A story in a comic needs to be told in a small number of pages, and can achieve it through the sequential images. They say a picture says a thousand words, and in the case of comic books, the pictures tell the story. Take this example from Raymond Feist’s Magician:

"Pug tugged at the collar of his new tunic. It wasn’t really new, being one of Tomas’s old ones, but it was the newest Pug had ever owned. Magya, Tomas’s mother, had taken it in for the smaller boy, to ensure he was presentable before the Duke and his court. Magya and her husband, Megar the cook, were as close to being parents to the orphan as anyone in the keep. They tended his ills, saw that he was fed, and boxed his ears when he deserved it. They also loved him as if he were Tomas’s brother.
Pug looked around. The other boys all wore their best, for this was one of the most important days of their young lives. Each would stand before the assembled Craftmasters and members of the Duke’s staff, and each would be considered for an apprentice’s post. It was a ritual, its origins lost in time, for the choices had already been made. The crafters and the Duke’s staff had spent many hours discussing each boy’s merits with one another and knew which boys they would call.
The practice of having the boys between eight and thirteen years of age work in the crafts and services had proved a wise course over the years in fitting the best suited to each craft. In addition, it provided a pool of semiskilled individuals for the other crafts should the need arise. The drawback to the system was that certain boys were not chosen for a craft or staff position. Occasionally there would be too many boys for a single position, or no lad judged fit even though there was an opening. Even when the number of boys and openings seemed well matched, as it did this year, there were no guarantees. For those who stood in doubt, it was an anxious time."

This whole scene can be converted into one page.