Comics, even today, are considered by some to be a “low brow” art. But using graphics and words to tell a story gives a narrative power unavailable to words alone. That low-brow perception, however, is eroding, and the graphic novel is a rising literary form.

Keith McCleary, who speaks at City College on March 2, joins the growing list of  literary graphic storytellers.  He will speak about comics and writing at 12:30 p.m. in room V-101.

McCleary has published graphic novels, including “Top of the Heap” and “Killing Tree Quarterly,” and contributed to the series “ZombieBomb 1-6” and “Curves and Bullets.”

He holds a degree in Creative Writing from University of California-San Diego and a film degree from New York University. He teaches the graphic literary form through zines and webcomics, and explores the evolving perception of comics in culture.

He taught a course on comics and composition at UCSD called “ComicCraft” The Art of Issuing Issues and Tuning Toons.”

He is the comics curator for the website Entropy (http://entropymag.org/), where he conducts interviews and presents new works by comics creators.

He is co-editing a series of illustrated horror anthologies, “States of Terror,” for Ayahuasca Publishing, a San Diego press. His own graphic stories are published by Terminal Press, a New York-based independent publisher specializing in “dark and edgy and graphic comic books.”