comics are a genuine mode of expression...

"Comic strips in the year 2000? I think, I hope, that they will [finally!] be accepted and that, dare I say it, adults will be reading them as much as children. I hope that the world of comic strips will no longer be so barren, vilified as the source of all evil and a business that stultifies its readers, in some people’s eyes. I hope that they will become a complete form of expression, like literature or cinema [by which, it should be noted, they have been heavily influenced]. Perhaps, or rather no doubt, comic strips will find, on their way, their own Balzac – an author who is gifted with both artistic and literary abilities, who will create a classic work."

(Hergé in 1969)