When is it Okay to Judge a Book by its Cover?

When meeting new people many have heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” as a way to say not to judge people by how they look. The phrase has also been used literally to warn readers against judging a book too quickly and actually giving the story a chance (whether readers actually follow this advice is a different story as nice cover art will always be more pleasing and attention-grabbing). But does this logic apply to graphic novels?

There are several ways to look at this question, the first being that compared to a novel the art of the cover of a graphic novel is more likely to be a true reflection of the story and it might even give clues to the plot. With a novel that is just words the author often has little communication with an artist making the cover art seem like just generic images that vaguely represent the story. Judging the book based on that is silly but a graphic novel should have a more reliable cover.

There is also the idea that “cover” does not need to be so literal and a glance at the art inside the graphic novel could also cause readers to make a judgment. Sometimes readers have artist preferences that they find make reading a comic more enjoyable and personally, I see this the same as knowing what genres you like the best. A reader could just not enjoy an art style and that could cause them to not read the novel. Personally, I did not enjoy the art style of the Watchmen at first. As seen in the image above it uses a lot of red and shadows which is not usually a style I like as I prefer a more bubbly/cute look and color scheme when reading comics. I read a lot of graphic novels, webcomics, and manga so I know which styles and genres I gravitate toward and this one was not something I usually read. However, by the end, I was analyzing the art and understanding what the color scheme was implying or highlighting about the scenes and I did end up enjoying the story. But then again this was not an art style that I absolutely couldn’t stand, it was simply one that I was not interested in just as I normally am not interested in superhero comics and movies. I always end up enjoying those stories when I do read or watch them as I generally like all genres but it is not one that I seek out as I know I love other genres like fantasy or slice of life. I think this all comes down to the idea that if you don’t read something you are “missing out”. I don’t believe in this idea, I rather see it as my time is spent reading something else that I know I would enjoy more rather than reading something that I might enjoy but not love like the other book. So in this circumstance, I think it is fine to judge a book by its cover as that can tell you if it is a book that is the best way to spend your reading time.

This is not the only way to look at this topic though, the other way is through the idea that judge is similar to analyze. If we replaced the word judge, which has a negative connotation and comes with the idea of looking at something purposefully to find something wrong with it, and replace it with analyze the idea takes on a more neutral tone as analyze is more neutral and gives off the idea of simply thinking looking something over and deeply observing it. I would argue that all we do in this class is analyze these graphic novels and in any English class we analyze regular novels. Why does analyzing the cover seem so different than analyzing the rest of the art when the cover should be a reflection of the story inside? I feel like it is perfectly fine to judge the cover then when looking at it from a scholarly standpoint.

Overall I find it perfectly fine to “judge a book by its cover” because the cover can tell you important things like if the book is drawn in a style you enjoy reading or gives clues to help analyze the plot of the story. So to answer the title it is okay to judge a book by its cover when that book is a graphic novel.