I’m a slow reader (about as many words a minute as I type, it seems), but hey, I have a dynamite rate of retention. Still, I once absorbed an entire novel, a great one, in one sitting. This was Gods’ Man by Lynd Ward.

Ward didn’t need no stinkin words to tell the myth of an artist who sold out, got run out of town, and found himself again, just in time to…. I won’t spoil it for you. The ending is a doozy.

Ward was part of a movement of wordless novelists in the early 20th century. It’s art at its most powerful, if you ask me. Stories, morals and archetypal characters that strike the brain while completely bypassing the left-brain neuro-pathways and such drudgery as words and language. Isn’t this why we liked “Spy vs. Spy”? And, for you old-timer’s, “Henry”? Words, at some level, blow. At least compared to pictures.

These weren’t really cartoons as we know them, either. They were woodcuts. Ward was influenced by a Belgian master named Frans Masereel who drew (or cut, actually) a 165-picture gem called Passionate Journey, the story of a man who… goes through life. He experiences just about every social, mental, and physical experience there is, culminating in a point of spiritual transformation.

Another one I like, which is timely right now, is one Ward did in the 1930s, Vertigo, a tale of tough times in the Great Depression. It’s slick and raw at the same time, and it’s Ward at his best (though he did go on to win a Caldecott Medal for illustrating a children’s book in the 1950s).

Three novels, zero words. If you get a chance, check them out. Your inner eight-year-old will thank you.