Comic Book Grammar
Jonathan Liu of wired.com and GeekDad wrote about the place of graphic novels in literature. Liu believes that comic books should be included in the field of “real literature”.
Comic Book Grammar
Jonathan Liu of wired.com and GeekDad wrote about the place of graphic novels in literature. Liu believes that comic books should be included in the field of “real literature”. Graphic novels such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus are considered important enough to deserve Pulitzer prizes. Yet these novels are often viewed as “low culture” picture books. Liu thinks that this is because the authors and artist of comics do not take their work seriously.
Liu has read through thousands upon thousands of pages of both regular novels and comics, and he’s found something interesting. While novelists take the time to edit their books carefully, comic book authors are often in a rush to get to print and therefore are not as thorough in their spelling and grammar checking. This is of such a concern because it is not just simple typos showing up in print. Often there are misused apostrophes or just the contextual errors, as in the case of “their” versus “there”. These mistakes, according to Liu, show a misunderstanding and disregard for the English language. They reflect poorly on the authors and on the entire genre.
A tool that can help authors of both novels and comic books is WhiteSmoke 2011 grammar-checking software. WhiteSmoke scans texts from most applications for spelling and grammar mistakes. It even offers suggestions for style improvement. WhiteSmoke 2011 is definitely a must-have for authors who want to produce flawless writing. Any literature should be written properly, regardless whether it is defined as serious or otherwise.
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Tags: Comic book, GeekDad, grammar check, Graphic novel, whitesmoke, Writing
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September 12th, 2011 at 7:34 am
I cringe each time I see the question asked as to whether a certain genre of writing can be considered ‘real literature’ because the word literature has so much baggage attached – strong overtones of elitism and judgmentalism.
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But you’re definitely right that more effort should be put into proof-reading works that are produced in a hurry.
October 18th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
An enjoyable read, and the software looks like a good one to have, but I don’t see a link. Why don’t you get an affiliate arrangement with the company and put a link here? Why not? Won’t hurt anything. Thanks for the look at the comic book genre as serious literature. They have tremendous potential, if you ask me. But they take a lot of ink to create with the software I have seen, and ink is expensive, but it is a fun idea for an enthusiast.