Interpretation of Bakers Artistic Style

The artistic drawings in graphic novels has to be one of the most interesting and important elements in this particular style of storytelling. It is important because it adds that second dimension to the story. Instead of making all the visual action happen within the reader’s imagination it brings the story to life with great detail. The pictures are almost more important than the actual words themselves. One can see the true meaning of “a picture is worth a thousand words” when reading a graphic novel.

The story of Nat Turner is told using many different shades of black and white. The author and artist, Kyle Baker, uses shades of black to show great evil anger and sadness.  He uses white to contrast the black showing positive influences.  The page our group chose to examine also has an interesting style of art. It starts off showing pictures of the bible with Nat reading them. As the panels progress Nat’s profile continues to grow within the frame till it ultimately climaxes with a huge portrait of Nat and a bible scene in the background. As I said before, a picture is worth a thousand words. These four panels really emphasize Nat’s reaction to his realization that it is actually possible to be freed from slavery and the graphic novel tells this entire story without words.