Woodcut novel as forerunner of graphic novel

During the early years of the 20th century when the severe financial crisis and social collapse was brought following the WWI, woodcut novels have emerged as a genre that tells stories without using words with a distinctive Expressionist style. Frans Masereel who is considered a forerunner of this unique pictorial storytelling coined the term since he used woodcut as a method in his novels. However, the term wordless novel have also been used to define this genre since the artists who followed the path after Masereel and contributed to this genre used various printmaking techniques apart from woodcut. Woodcut novel which can be defined as a way of storytelling by using only sequential images with no texts have been influenced by many artistic disciplines and visual cultures of the early 20th century such as German Expressionism, silent movies and comic strips and books. Woodcut technique revived by German Expressionists has been a way of expression for artists to show their rage and disappointment against the social ills and the war. On the other hand, artistic disciplines of the time such as silent cinema and comic strips paved the way for the approaches of visual storytelling. Thus, woodcut novels as a genre based on such disciplines in terms of content, aesthetic, form and ways of storytelling predominantly focused on social issues and socialist themes. Woodcut novel that has influenced many graphic novelists is considered an antecedent of the modern graphic novel.