The basis of the comics medium is its combination of words and pictures in sequence, and any new term must avoid giving undue emphasis to either element of the equation.
Comic art is thus a literary medium in transition from mass popularity and cultural disdain to a new respectability as a means of expression and communication, and this new respect is evident first in the attitudes of the creators themselves.
Comic books, like all long printed narratives, promise but continually defer their endings until the final page.