Practicing Summary and Paraphrase

 This post will be a practice exercise for summary and paraphrasing by quoting from the interview with Art Spiegelman by "All Things Considered" on NPR

Original Source

"The whole point of what we're calling "graphic novels" is the melding of visual and verbal information — to sound professorial for a second — and part of that information starts with the first thing you see. ... It's why when, when Pantheon didn't want to give me the right to do the cover — back in 1986 when the first volume was published by them, and there was no such thing as a graphic novel that anybody'd heard of — I was sputtering. Like, how could they do that, if the cover's part of the book, of course?" -Art Spiegelman


My paraphrase of Original Source 

The cover art for graphic novels serve a greater purpose than to just look pretty, so that a reader walking by may be struck by some visually pleasing art work. A well designed graphic novel combines visual and textual information. The cover should begin the relay of information, because it's the first thing a reader will see. The cover art is just as much a part of the book as the actual pages.


My Summary of the Original Source 

Spiegelman discusses the importance of cover art by linking it as a part of the whole instead of just a cover. It's a critical part of the graphic novel that introduces information about the story, and is more than a flashy gimmick used to draw readers in.