Lit?-Moore's graphic novel

When it comes to comic books like Light of thy Countenance by Alan Moore, there is the question of whether or not comic books are pieces of literature or in other words a literary text. To me, I consider anything that has a meaning about life and what it means to be human a literary work/text. If it has a meaning about life and human beings, then it has relevance. Therefore, I would consider Moore's Light of Thy Countenance a literary text.

I consider Moore's graphic novel to be a literary text because it puts forth a meaning about life and also a meaning about humans. It's saying that we as humans are being carried off into the future with the advancement of technology and how technology is controlling out everyday lives. Moore's graphic novel is showing us how we are controlled by a single television, centering our whole lives around it, even to the extent that we're relying on it. We spend more time with technologies than with actual human beings. This is what we as readers get from reading the graphic novel. Even when the television died, it came back to life, for we humans were to the ones to create it and bring it back. This demonstrates how we are relying on it for many things, paying more attention to it than our own kind-human beings, the people we actually live our lives with. Even the television itself says, "I am the last voice you will ever hear." This is furthering the idea that technology is controlling our everyday lives to the extent that it's the "last voice" that we'll ever hear.

Moore's graphic novel as a literary text offers more than just the idea of technology controlling human lives, but also visual representations of the idea itself. This is due to the way the story is formatted. It's a comic; therefore, there are images throughout the whole story to demonstrate to the readers what the narrator is actually talking about. It is showing images just like the way a television does, furthering that idea of technology.

With the idea of the advancement of technology and how it's controlling the daily lives of human beings in Light of Thy Countenance, there is that similarity to Capek's "R.U.R." In "R.U.R.", there is also the idea that technology is taking over the lives of human beings, even when the ones who created them were humans themselves. Technology is just growing and growing and dominating the ones who are controlling them, leading to a result where they are now the gods, though this may not be the case in "R.U.R."

It doesn't matter whether or not a text is read for fun; the thing that matters is whether or not it has a meaning and significance to it regarding life and humans. If it does, then that text constitutes as a literary text. Plus, I do believe that literature can still continue to be relevant even with media and technology rising, for literature comes in many different forms, not just necessarily in the forms of books.