DeKALB | A graphic novel is just a big comic book, right?

This kind of question would cause assistant libraries professor Wayne Finley to launch into scholarly discourse on the differences between the two art platforms.

Coincidentally, that’s exactly what happens in “The Long, Drawn Tale,” an exhibit put together in the graphic novel format by Finley, associate libraries professor Charles Larry and senior library specialist Angie Schroeder.

While working as a student librarian, Finley often found himself denouncing common misconceptions about graphic novels, a long-held passion of the now assistant professor.

Finley said students would assume they were all aimless stories of superheroes, and he would explain that the illustrated novels possessed literary value.

The exhibit, on display in Founders Memorial Library through September, is a series of comic-style panels researched and written by Finley and Schroeder with visual art by Larry. The story depicts Finley enlightening Schroeder on the subject of graphic novels after she mistakes what he is reading for a comic book.

“Charles was the mastermind behind all the art,” Schroeder said.

The three members posed for photographs which were then manipulated to create comic styled panels. The actual creation of the exhibit took four months, Finley said.

Starting in glass cases behind the information desk on the first floor, the cases continue onto the fourth floor, ending by the Rare Books & Special Collections Department.

“A graphic novel is generally a self-contained story, long and complex told in a visual format whereas a comic book…is usually a shorter story than a graphic novel and is published serially in a magazine format,” Finley tells Schroeder in the panels.

After Finley introduces Schroeder to Larry, the trio embarks on an adventure through time and space to show the basic principles and history of graphic novels, refute general misunderstandings about the format, and give significant examples of award-winning graphic novels such as “Maus” and “Watchmen”.

As both Finley and Larry are on the exhibit committee, and share an enthusiasm for graphic novels, they were able to combine their experience to create the exhibit.

“We hoped to bring our interests together to make people more aware of the genre,” Finley said.