Okay, I have to say this

And I say it at the risk of feeling like a close-minded jerk. But I just can't keep this secret anymore.

I don't like comic books as much as – um – text-only books. Or whatever you call them when you're putting them in opposition to comic books.

This makes me sad because I think it's a very cool form. One thing I love about films is the way you see people's eyes move – I don't know why, but I'm completely obsessed with eye movements in films, when people's eyelids flick upwards suddenly, or when they glance over at each other, or, um....Do other people notice these things? It is my FIENDISH UNENDING OBSESSION. And it makes me sad that these eye-flicking movements can't be captured in regular books. And in graphic novels they can. And I also really love how graphic novels can do that thing of isolating a specific moment by putting it in a panel all by itself. Very cool.

And God knows I love me some Neil Gaiman. (Wouldn't it be cool to live inside Neil Gaiman's head for like a day? It must be very interesting to be Neil Gaiman and have all those weird-shit thoughts inside your brain.)

And I do not at all want to be one of those people who fall all over themselves trying to make it clear that although graphic novels (and they often say "comics" before they remember to correct themselves and use the more lofty term) are a Magnificent Art Form that can Win Awards (like Maus – they always say, Like Maus because it, being about the Holocaust, is the only graphic novel they can think of that they think qualifies as Literature even though they haven't read it), it is just not their cup of tea. That isn't me! Comics aren't not my cup of tea! I'm not those people!

I just, I just – you can't read them out loud. You can't read them out loud even a little bit. They're unreadoutloudable. And that's why I like them less.

I was thinking of this last night when I was reading A Game of You, because A Game of You has a whole bunch of characters with really, really distinct voices. I was thinking how much fun it would be to read A Game of You out loud, and then I remembered how I can't do that because of its graphic nature. I felt sad because I love Neil Gaiman so much and The Sandman generally would be tremendous fun to read aloud – Delirium? and Wanda? and the inn people in the Hob Gadling story? – and I can't. I would like to but CAN NOT. Every time I think about that I feel sad again. I'm making a frowny face right now.

Sigh.