Andrei Molotiu says it perfectly in his introduction to ABSTRACT COMICS (Fantagraphics, $39.99). This book chronicles ways in which artists, including cartoonists, have “played with the possibility of sequential art [. . . ,] whose panels contain little to no representational imagery, or [. . . tell] no stories other than those resulting from the transformation and interaction of shapes across a comic page.” That’s the adventure really. For me, it’s hard to slow down sometimes. So often graphic storytelling is such a combination of narrative and art that it’s easy to fall into reading mode—scanning left to right, left to right. It becomes a treat to take a page of art - or a simple panel - and consider how the shapes, texture, depth, and color interact with one another; to reflect on how, when one takes the time, the enjoyment one ordinarily finds in reading a purely textually-oriented, narrative-driven written story can - with the graphic form - be translated into something completely different. Adam Waterreus
