Graphic Non-Fiction: Word-Picture Relationships, Page Design and the Truth Claims of Drawn Journalism

Graphic memoir tells the creator's own life; graphic journalism reports on events and people, often through interviews the cartoonist conducts.

One in which neither words nor picture alone carries the meaning; the reader must combine them.

Panel 2 (the child's hands on the window, no words). It suggests wonder or uncertainty, perhaps that the child has no words yet for this new place.

That the speech is translated from another language.

To shift from the big setting to an intimate, personal moment and to create emphasis by contrast.

They can invite readers to identify with or project themselves into the character.

Whether the book signals its sources (interviews, documents, notes) and makes clear the scenes are reconstructed.

A wide panel showing the setting, usually at the start of a scene.

Scott McCloud, 1993.

Her two years working in the Alberta oil sands (a graphic memoir, 2022).

Duo-specific.

A 2019 comics anthology in which Indigenous writers and artists retell histories of the land now called Canada.

Sample: the caption says Everyone was so welcoming, while the picture shows the narrator eating lunch alone. The gap between words and image lets the reader infer the opposite of the caption, creating irony without stating it.

To show that the account comes through one reporter's questions, presence and perspective, which makes the method visible and invites readers to judge it.

Sample: The family likely speaks a language other than English at home, and the mother is protective, supported by the square brackets (translation) and her warning It's colder than you think.

Large panels slow the reader (more to look at, a sense of space or importance); small or many panels speed up the reading or isolate a single detail.

It is funny because a child's first Canadian word being toque is unexpectedly specific and very Canadian. It is meaningful because it marks the start of belonging through an everyday object of winter life.

Prose would need to name the feeling or describe it in words (I pressed my hands against the glass, amazed and afraid), which interprets it for the reader. The graphic version shows the hands and leaves the feeling unstated, so the reader infers it; the silence itself becomes meaning. Prose can give interior thought precisely; comics can give simultaneous detail and silence.

Sample: not inherently. Photographs can be staged, cropped or chosen to mislead, while drawings openly show a point of view. Trust depends on sourcing and transparency: a graphic journalist who documents interviews and marks reconstructions can be more honest about perspective than a photo presented as neutral. However, drawings cannot provide the same physical evidence a photograph can, so they rely more on the creator's credibility.

Comics can combine story, image and voice in an accessible form, centre Indigenous creators' perspectives on events often told by others, show land and community visually, and reach readers who might not pick up a history book. The visual form can also draw on storytelling traditions and contemporary art, making history feel present rather than distant.