7 Graphic Novels That Build Stories from Fragments

Emil Wilson highlights seven graphic novels that use collage, photography, letters, notes, and handmade techniques as essential parts of their storytelling. What connects these books is that their visual materials are not decorative additions but active elements of the narrative. In Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, Anders Nilsen documents his fiancée’s illness and death through sketches, letters, photographs, and journal fragments. Nora Krug’s Belonging turns collage into a method of investigating her family’s possible involvement in Nazi Germany. In I Thought You Loved Me, MariNaomi revisits letters and keepsakes from a lost friendship to question the reliability of memory. Frank Santoro’s Pittsburgh uses construction paper, tape, and layered drawing to reconstruct family history, while Lizzy Stewart’s Alison uses collage to portray a woman gradually building both an artistic life and a sense of self. Gareth Brookes’ The Dancing Plague burns, embroiders, and textures its pages to make historical fear and violence physically present. Disa Wallander’s Becoming Horses combines blurred photography and drawings to explore trauma, identity, and the relationship between inner life and the external world. For Wilson, these works show how the physical form of a graphic novel can carry meaning as powerfully as its words.