"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" or whatever.

Well that can't be true, how can a picture ever tell anything like words?

   

Or actually, maybe I can answer that.  We don't always communicate with simply words.  Instead of having to say I'm tired or sleepy, someone could infer that from the way I appear, from the image they see.

Why could this not go for literature?  One picture may not always say "a thousand words," but it can certainly be in place for quite a few.  The stigma against comics and other pictured books may stem from the idea that children use picture books before they mature and become smart enough to read books with only words.  Scott McCloud in "Show and Tell" details this issue, but I ask why we stray away from images.  If they can help children understand complex and abstract ideas that they can't read...

Well, maybe not quite that drastic, but the point is that you understood what I was suggesting and I didn't even have to say it.  The power of an image is far too much to let go unused.  Sure words have their own power in allowing people to have their own interpretation of scenes and ideas, but it's not like pictures can't do that either.  And, hey, why not just use them together, as McCloud suggested.  I could've told you everything in this blogpost with just words, but would you have understood as well without the pictures?  But it wouldn't have made sense without the words either, no?  Maybe it's time for you to delve into a new form of literature that may interest you...