There may, at first, seem something rather disrespectful about trying to explain the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in a comic book. As much as the “graphic novel” has been championed as the next new thing and subjects as serious as a nuclear holocaust have been portrayed as a comic strip — to great effect by Raymond Briggs in “When the Wind Blows” — comics have yet to shake off their pulp status.The prospect of relaying serious information would appear to be beyond the comic’s reach.

The publication next Tuesday of “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation” by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon prompts a reappraisal of the form. Both men, now in their mid-70s, spent their lives dreaming up the adventures of Spider-Man and Wonder Woman. And when, after months of investigation, the commissioners published their report, the pair consumed it thoroughly. They concluded that none but the most dedicated citizen would ever get around to reading it.

The solution they proposed was in the best democratic interests. They would use their expertise to write and draw a comic book version of the report to encourage even those who do not read books or serious newspapers to come to terms with the report’s findings.

The result is a triumph of popular journalism, an intelligent and clear account of the causes, events, and aftermath of September 11, employing all the tricks of graphic art to make its points.The two men are so skilful that even the chairman and co-chairman of the commission, Thomas H. Kean and Lee. H. Hamilton, have commended that we all read it; their foreword to the book praises its intentions and execution.

What is most laudable is the restraint with which the authors tackle their grisly subject. Osama bin Laden, who features prominently, is made to look mean and purposeful, but has none of the traditional allure of comic book villains. Al Qaeda’s methods, however, are portrayed with full candor and one of the most troubling frames has hijackers practicing their throat-slitting techniques on writhing sheep.

The portrayal of key decision making moments by President Bush, Secretary Powell, Vice President Cheney, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the rest is done in a matter-of-fact manner, erring on the side of photographic accuracy rather than caricature.

Most telling, perhaps, is the way the chilling events of September 11 itself are portrayed. It is not only the families of the victims of the hijackings and the bombed buildings who are fearful of accounts of the tragedy on the screen. No New Yorker will be able to scan the pages dealing with the plane bombs flying over Manhattan or the plight of those stuck in the Twin Towers without reawakening terrible memories.

And so they should. It will be many years before such man-made horrors become the commonplace background for fictional adventures or, as even the Nazis have become, subjects of a humorous Broadway musical.

What Messrs. Jacobson and Colon have managed to pull off so adeptly is a sober means of understanding the helplessness of those who watched their flight attendants knifed and those imprisoned in the towers who cried out in vain to be rescued. In a World Trade Center scene, loudspeakers blare, “Evacuate Immediately,” as a woman navigating the falling debris simply asks, “How?”

In a frame below, a defiant couple look out from the South Tower across to the blazing North Tower. The boxed commentary offers a bleak prognosis: “Receiving conflicting suggestions, most South Tower tenants stayed where they were. Clearly, the prospect of another plane hitting the second building was beyond contemplation.”

In Washington, Dick Cheney, watching events unfold on television, has a similar cast of mind. “How the hell could a plane — ” says his bubble, before breaking into a second, “Oh, no! A second one!”

The portrayal of Mr. Cheney is interesting because, on grounds of objectivity, the authors were for once deliberately inaccurate. On the Web site of the book’s publisher, Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Ernie Colon said: “[Cheney] has a mouth formation that looks like a sneer, so I drew him that way. But after I drew him I thought it might look like a political statement and we wanted to stay away from that, so I withdrew that and put in something which looked a little more neutral.”

The authors also omitted the most haunting memories of all: scenes of victims falling from the towers. In the course of his research, Mr. Colon admits to becoming inured to terrible images, but one picture was so poignant it broke through: the sight of a policeman weeping as he watched people leaping to their deaths.

This is a disturbing book to read. It evokes so well that sunny morning when the world violently shifted course, but it also drives home the many things left undone by our own government; from the political distractions that hampered President Clinton’s response to Al Qaeda, to the inadequate understanding by President Bush and Condoleezza Rice that terrorists may use planes to bomb us, to the problems, still to be fixed, with emergency workers’ communications equipment.

The authors should be applauded for ensuring that the lessons of the 9/11 Commission are given the widest airing. And for reminding us that in this hazardous new world, a democracy needs to employ all forms of art to inform its citizens.