Being a fan of graphic novels I was really excited to see “Skim” on the course syllabus. Generally I don’t think that graphic novels are taken as seriously as they should be but I think they provide a very different yet equally artistically valid reading experience in contrast to poetry or novels. I almost liken reading “Skim” to watching a movie rather than reading a book because the drawings have a cinematic quality yet they are quite subtle as well. The dialogue is understandably a lot sparser than a traditional novel but that does not mean that the book lacks content whatsoever. A lot of the emotional content is expressed in the panels which have no dialogue; that’s where a lot of the character Skim’s personality is revealed. I liked that a lot of the panels had a non-linear quality, you couldn’t exactly tell which panel you were supposed to read next so it was kind of like you were privy to Skim’s thoughts as they form and appear. I think “Skim” does an excellent job of capturing the kind of friendships teenage girls have with one another as well as conveying what it’s like to be the ‘weird girl’/underdog in the occasionally hellish society of high school in a very poignant way.

Do you think graphic novels are a better expressive medium than novels? What do you think are the advantages or disadvantages to this type of medium?