Week 7

Since their inception comic books have been striving to be legitimized, and with the introduction with graphic novels such as "Maus", and "I saw it", the first step was taken towards legitimization. I believe after reading both novels the reason for this is because for one of the first times since their creation comics had offered something that they had never or had hardly done in the past, they told historical accounts of true stories. This interested many of the different parties that had fought against the legitimization of comics, as comics had finally given a valid argument to those who opposed them  about their usefulness to society.

Up until that point most of comics were fictional and involved a variety of genres that ranged from very close to reality, to science fiction. Of course people had been writing fiction since we could create symbols, so why did comics have such a problem with legitimization compared to the works of other authors such as Shakespeare? A large argument the anti-comic books supporters have held even to this very day was that by giving us a visual comic books were taking away our ability to imagine what is being written. Granted their is some validity to this claim as my interpretation of some characters and situations are for certain different than what other people interpret, or even the creator themselves have created, but it doesn't mean that our imagination is hampered like the anti-comic people are claiming, it simply means that I have to use my imagination a little more to reimagine those particular situations in a way that I interpret them. 

This is why I believe these two Graphic novels began to push against this argument as it gave a potential purpose for comics, a it showed historical events from the eyes and mind of a witness. This gives the comic book legitimization as a historical document or account for some of the most important, and possibly devastating events that have happened in recent modern human history.