Now let's look at the same artwork, but with different text...
And once more...
We have here three very different stories with varying degrees of interest and/or excitement. But the artwork is identical throughout. Take a look at the comic without any text...
The different images really have nothing in common with one another, other than the fact that I've arranged them in sequence. In the earlier examples, I used the text to tie one image to the next, creating stories (of a sort) but the images by themselves tell no story whatsoever. Any story a reader might suppose exists is only whatever the reader imposes on it themself.
So, while the first three sets are comics, the fourth is not. A reader cannot suppose with any accuracy what the writer may or may not intend without the benefit of some accompanying text. Maybe it's a story about global domination, but maybe it's just the story of a man who likes to watch British sci-fi on TV. As a reader, you can't know unless I, as the writer, tell you. A story can be invented for this artistic sequence, but it cannot be inferred.
This is an extreme example of a comic ceasing to be a comic when one element of it is removed. But most comics are not created in such a fashion and there's a decided grey area on whether or not a comic can still be considered a comic with certain elements missing. It seems to me that the defining characteristic is whether or not the story "reads" with any clarity towards the authors' original intent. And since that is dependent upon each reader as an individual, that cut-off point is going to vary with each reader as an individual. What may "read" cogently for one person may not for someone else.
And that's probably a big part of why we, collectively, have not been able to definitively define "comics".
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