I am so tempted to paraphrase Wesley Gibson from “Wanted”, (A graphic novel which i happened to read just yesterday 
, and which has been adapted into a movie, and releasing in March nxt yr.. or is it Feb?? ) from a sequence whr he is just so digusted with all the conformity around him, his dead end deadbeat life, tht he eloquently yet succintly says “FUCK YOU !!!!” 
.. .
But I will refrain. I, instead, will in my own small way, try and make you see that you are wrong in thinking so, and hopefully, by the time you are done reading this (If u DO read this), you will have a better appreciation of the brilliant-yet-so largely misunderstood medium of Comic Books. Oh yes.. the media did invent a new term for comic books which contain subject matter not suitable for children, and which appeal to a more mainstream reader base. They termed em “Graphic Novels”. Its like calling a Spade “An Apparatus used to dig a grave.. generally someone else’s.. and occasionally, your own too”, instead of just calling it a Spade !!! ..
Comic Books (Ok.. for your sake I will use the term Graphic Novel from time to time.. but only beacuse u’ve been hearing this term a lot these days.. what with Zack Snyder making us drool all over Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, the Gorgeous throne of Xerxes and 299 othr spartans) have become a whole lot more popular with the general public in the past couple of years. We’ve all been held breathless by the imagery and the brilliance of “300″ & “Sin City”, and the intelligent and powerful translation of “V for Vendetta”, onto the big screen. These movies made people see just how rich the world of comic books could be, and just how vast the world of comic books really was.. with brilliant stories full of brave and courageous souls, even immoral ones, who occasionally did the right thing. Kudos to Robert Rodriguez & Zack Snyder for adapting these graphic novels so brilliantly. But hear you me whn i say this… THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG !! there are sooooooo many of these out there.. Sin City & 300 arent even the best works of Frank Miller (Who wrote both the graphic novels btw) !!
Most of us read works of fiction, in the form of espionage thrillers, romantic novels (I’m talking abt genuine romance here.. not the load of crap that constitutes a Mills & Boon or a Silhouette novel), conventional jump-up-in-your-seat kind of thrillers, Fantasies, Dramas, even the occasional Sci-Fi (for me its the total opposite though ..). We are swept away by wht the author is dishing out to us, and go GaGa over the books saying “Its awesome, its a must read, u’ll never get bored” .. and all that jazz. Even in graphic novels, most of the themes that you encounter are the same !!! Its just that there are pictures accompanying the words (and what awesome artwork at that!! : D). Its more like a mental block that we have.. we see a graphic novel and we instantaneously say “Naahhh.. that stuff is for kids.. who’s gonna read that??”.. or “Graphic novels aren’t for me.. i can never identify with em”. Fine.. you are entitled to your opinion. But wht really gets me riled up is the fact that there are some who havent even read the stuff !! And they think that they are entitled to an opinion!!
Graphic Novels, more often than not, are a metaphor. A metaphor for society as a whole, A metaphor for human emotion, A metaphor for the unlimited boundaries of the human mind and its imagination !! In my humble opinion, they really are a celebration of the power of the literary , as well as the artistic mind 
. I’ll give you a few examples to illustrate my point. Oh yeah.. the examples are basically some of the greatest Comic books ever written .
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is a memoir by Art Spiegelman, presented as a graphic novel. It recounts the struggle of Spiegelman’s father to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew and draws largely on his father’s recollections of his experiences. The book also follows the author’s troubled relationship with his father and the way the effects of war reverberate through generations of a family. The book has a satirical feel about it since the characters are all presented as various types of anthropomorphic animals, according to nationality or race. Jews, for example, are depicted as human-like mice, Germans as cats, Americans as dogs, and Poles as pigs.
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean, is quite simply, the greatest Batman Graphic Novel ever written (Again, this is upto debate, but you’d find very few people who would disagree with me on this one ). The book is notable for both McKean’s typical blend of painting, collage, and ink drawings and Morrison’s exploration of various mystic ideas, including the symbiosis between Batman and the criminals he captured and recaptured. Various threads of symbolism used by Morrison include the works of Lewis Carroll, and the psychology of Carl Jung.
And if you were talking about graphic novels, it would amount to blasphemy if u didnt mention..
Watchmen, which is a twelve-issue comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.To date, Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s 2005 list of “the 100 greatest novels of the literary world, from 1905 to 2005″. Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative History US, where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with failings, and who – with one notable exception – lack anything recognizable as super powers.
The whole point of these examples, was to show you that graphic novels can address topical issues with the same amount of gravitas and meaning, as a conventional novel. And for me, the artwork only serves to make em more Kick Ass !!! . We have amazing contemporary authors such as Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary gentlemen) , Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, 300, Ronin), J Michael Straczynski (Silver Surfer: Requiem), Grant Morrison, Jeph Loeb (I guess we all know him better as the executive producer of “Heroes”, the TV series ) and of course, who can forget the Silver Age guys such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby . I’m tellin u.. read some of their works.. you’ll be spellbound .
There are graphic novels, which are just so gorgeously drawn, that even if they have a normal superhero type story, you are at a loss for words, because of the wizardry in the illustrations. Jim Lee, Alex Ross (He designed the cover for Ramayan 3392 AD, which btw, is becoming quite popular back home in India .. yayyyyy ), Andy Kubert, Joe Quesada, and many more!!
Give comic books a chance.. they can be as real as you want em to be.. and no other literary medium can provide a better means of escaping convention and boredom, than the graphic novel . The only thing which bothers me from time to time is the fact that THERE ARE SO MANY OF EM !!!! … but thn again, its wht makes them so fascinating !!
