"There's no type of fiction that comes close to comics for the layers of storytelling, ... This is mythology, but it's not mythology that's refined slightly over time. It's mythology that's constantly evolving."
~ Marvel Comics (@MARVEL) Editor-in-Chief since January Axel Alonso (@axelalonsomarv) in The New York Times article from the Sunday March 27, 2o11 issue readable online here since March 25th.
Now E-i-C Alonso is really talking about the medium of comics in that first part and pretty squarely mainstream American superhero comics in that second part and both ancient mythology and superhero mythology does/did change. But I think we can forgive him that confusion since it's an extremely common one in the US and because the quote is excellent.
More important is the part about layers: static visual art in deliberate sequence combined with text allows a storyteller to depict complex narrative with iconography. That means visual and textual metaphor. Even simultaneously. That means rich, symbolic, contextual meaning.
Powerful layered storytelling.
~@JonGorga
