I have, over the years, noticed the huge difference in popularity between pictures and stories. I've got many theories on these, but I'm fairly sure I understand a few points.

1: Stories are usually written in a single language. To read that, you would have to know that language, (and the larger the vocabulary of the writer, the more you need to know.) Pictures, however, don't need spoken words to tell their story.

2: Stories take longer to read than pictures take to look at. Not everyone has time to sit down for a chapter, but plenty of people can take a peak at a picture.

3: Generally, a good artist can make a character sketch much quicker than a good writer can make a short story. Now, personally, I can dump out a short story or a chapter in an hour, but my typing speed is damn near 80 wpm, so when I'm concentration, my fingers almost move as fast as my mind does when thinking out a story. That being said, I'm not a practiced artist, but I can sketch a character design in an hour, so in recognization, a fast artist would be much quicker than my writing when it's unedited story vs sketch.

4: When you open a story, you cannot be guarenteed quality. Even from the shelves in a bookstore you can't be sure that it'll have proper grammar anymore. What with the deterioration in English studies, I've opened up a "New York Times Bestseller" and couldn't get past the second chapter because my mind broke from the inappropriate usage in non-speech quotations. Now, that isn't to say that looking at a picture you can't be guarenteed quality... but you can tell much quicker. Where I read for half an hour, I would only have to look at a picture for half a minute, if that.

I'm not sure if I'm arguing against my main trade or not...