Anne Levy notes that during the behind-the-scenes conversation informing the Cybil Awards, there had been some discussion of the distinction between picture books an comics. Levy points towards some further consideration of this topic on the “Oz and Ends” blog by J. L. Bell as part of a series of posts dubbed “Comics and Non-Comics Week.” Bell particularly notes the way that Scott McCloud claims certain picture books as “comics” in his book Understanding Comics and quotes extensively from cartoonist Dylan Horrocks’s essay about McCloud’s book.
Bell continues his discussion in subsequent installments, drawing a distinction between pages and page spreads, noting the primacy of the page turn as a narrative device in picture books, the density of both repetition and variety in comics pages versus picture book pages (using Art Spiegelman’s Maus as an instructive example), and the inclusion of visually narrative devices such as speech balloons and sound effects in comics, among other topics.