The alternative form…

Thinking about NaNoWriMo, it occurs to me that you don’t have to write a prose novel…you could dedicate yourself this month to writing a graphic novel. Never mind if you’re not a visual artist, you can still tell a story in script format: 120 pages, 200 pages, however long you feel it should be. A graphic novel is still a novel — and the results can be spectacular.

Check out Moth City, for example — which is an online comic — a murder mystery. Check out Joe Sacco’s work, which is journalism an...