This paper considers the ways comics narratives with a documentary claim utilize sources and explain the use of sources to the readers. As case studies, we look into three graphic novels and their particular ways of informing readers about research methods that were employed for preparing the story and about the provenience of archival materials that were, directly or indirectly, quoted in the comics. The way a source is read and cited is crucial to its perception as capable to enhance our understanding of the historical reality it relates. Some genres of comic writing, such as journalistic and documentary comics, have palpably attained credibility and seem to be here to stay. Here, however, we are interested in comics that go distinctly further than journalism in their offer of eloquent arguments about certain historical realities. Accordingly, we focus on two examples of comics that can arguably participate in the academic discourse. To evaluate their academic reliability, in what follows we focus on the coding of history-related arguments in the generic grammar and visual iconography of comics. In particular, we emphasize the means in which these texts contemplate their sources and methods to establish such reliability. The aspiration of the authors to “be taken seriously” in their depictions of historical realities is crucial for the analysis of narrative comics as arguments about history. We claim that, by virtue of their distinctive coding of historical information—the combination of pictorial iconography, written texts and sophisticated narration techniques—comics authors can negotiate unique historical observations, which have the potential to enhance the knowledge and comprehension of the past beyond the limits of established academic writing.