Okay, scratch that last one.
Those are just some of the works considered by many as non-fiction, books that contain accounts of past events and guide of how people must act in the present or in the future. But as years go by, the terms "Real" and "True" have lost much of their meaning for most people. Such terms have been reduced to "who's real or truth is it?". "Real" and "Truth" have become an options or choices. Since, there are seemingly countless real's and truth's, it's only a matter of choosing what to believe or what to accept.
There is no wonder why "Calvin and Hobbes", "Dilbert", "The Phantom" or "The Amazing Spiderman", works labeled and considered as "fiction", are more acceptable and greatly enjoyed by audience.
Why? Because materials simply labeled as "fiction" causes people to ease up, put their mental guard down and say "hey, this thing is just fiction, it wont hurt my faith" or "at least, these things dont try to sell things to me or forcibly push thoughts upon me".
Comics generally don't offend non-believers in the way literary works of one group offend members of rival groups. Comics are generally seen as neutral and casual and hence more widely accepted.
In the realm of non-fiction, there are believers and non-believers. In the realm of fiction there are only fans and those who are not
(But of course, there are extreme comic fanatics of Marvel and DC who would say otherwise, but that is a topic reserved for another blog post).
Works of non-fiction are hailed as non-fiction only by believers, and as fiction by non-believers. For fiction, there is no obvious strong urge or sense to make a choice. Hence, the response from audience is merely to like or to not like.
Much of what have been considered as fiction contain stories of family, brotherhood, friendship, love, forgiveness, reconciliation, hate, vengeance, war and all bunch of things that the non-fiction are also about. The difference is that there is no strong explicit call to act
or to make audience believe what is being presented. Fiction dont shout "Believe" as loud as the non-fiction.
The works of fiction are a bit like positive reinforcement strategies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_reinforcement). They are most likely can and possibly be already effective in making people and act without "obviously" doing so. A lot of things that are more likely "truth" and "real" can be passively disseminated or spread via works of fiction without much friction.
But of course, through the years, content in the realm of advertisment and marketing - materials often considered as things outside of non-fiction - have been utterly successful making most people respond(believe and act) according to their objectives. And there have been novels published as fiction which hint of actual political and historical events. Songs, too have been instrumental in spreading awareness, whether of principles or commercial products.
Thus, acceptance of all content, whether fiction or non-fiction should be a matter of choice. One must be trully aware of what is implicitly or explicitly being stated by people or characters named Jesus, Mohammed, Elijah, Hitler, Obama, Ghandi, Cobain, Elvis, Lennon, Sinatra, Haile Selassie, Rizal, Dilbert, Calvin, or Sleepyhead(me).
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