Non-photorealism(NPR) is a misnomer. To validate, there is photorealism and then there is "the left over" or "everything else". So non-photorealism is defined by exhibiting a bias towards photorealism. As given in the book Advanced Renderman: Creating CGI for motion pictures - "other imagery(meaning other than photoreal) is not described by what it is, but by what it is not". But regardless of the definitions of NPR, it plays an important role in our lives. Today we are exposed to NPR in a variety of ways. Right from our dreams(believe it or not dreams can range from photoreal to the non-photoreal) to the movies to the grafitti on the wall to comic books to impressionistic art, we are literally smothered in non-photorealism. And the funny thing is we never give it a second thought - till now.

With the advent of high-power computers, non-photorealistic rendering is becoming a prominent area of research. And the results of the research is making itself felt in various artistic mediums like animation (computer and otherwise), computer games, movies, comics and even art in never before imagined ways. And that in turn makes non-photorealistic rendering increasingly difficult not to notice. But our area of interest is not the research itself, but the effect of the research. We confine our questions to the art of story-telling.

Stories have become an integral part of our life. Technology and endless creativity has merely enhanced our story-telling abilities. From the still yet dynamic frames of comic books to the moving images of animation or movies to the interactive experience of games, the basic question has always been, "How to tell this story effectively?". Here, we look at non-photorealistic rendering styles used in the aesthetics and effectiveness of visual story-telling with respect to new media like animation, movies, computer games and comic books.