During a classroom-based study, eight- to ten-year-old students had multiple opportunities to develop their knowledge and understanding about semiotic resources for meaning-making in picturebooks and graphic novels. Instruction during the study included a variety of activities that focussed on a selection of elements of visual art and design, and conventions of the medium of comics. A component of the study involved the Grades 4 and 5 students reading and discussing, and writing about two science graphic novels. Content analysis of the students' responses to these multimodal ensembles revealed how the students identified, described, and interpreted various elements of visual art and design, and conventions of the medium of comics in the science comics as fulfilling multiple meaning-making purposes. The findings indicated that student learning about the what, why and how of design affected their aesthetic understanding of and critical thinking about the science graphic novels.