Comics are defined by sequence, not by drawing style

McCloud's working definition strips comics down to their essential mechanic: juxtaposed pictorial images placed in deliberate sequence to convey information or produce an aesthetic response. This means a single cartoon is not a comic, but a wordless sequence of photographs could be. The definition deliberately excludes style, genre, and even words, which lets McCloud separate the medium (sequential art) from any one use of it (superhero stories, newspaper gags, memoir). This reframing was important because it freed comics from being judged only by their most commercially visible genre. A medium, McCloud insists, is not the same as a genre, and confusing the two had trapped comics in low critical esteem for decades. Once sequence becomes the defining feature, comics can be recognized in ancient tapestries, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Mesoamerican codices, giving the form a much longer and more dignified lineage than the twentieth-century comic book alone suggests. Takeaway: judge comics as a medium capable of any genre, not as one genre wearing a medium's name.