Graphic Novels, Seriously

In search of a device that would draw teenage boys to the library, Steve Weiner, then the children's librarian at a branch of the Somerville (MA) Public Library, began collecting superhero compendiums of comic books in 1987. The hook worked, as Weiner's branch saw its circulation jump 42 percent that year.

Fifteen years later, book-length comics, better known as graphic novels, have evolved as both a genre and an art form. Their popularity among teens is at an all-time high, and librarians, particularly in public libraries, are routinely building graphic novel collections to attract teen readers and their hyper-visual predilections. (See "What Teens Want" )

Despite their nascent popularity, graphic novels are often still typecast as hewing only to the superhero plot line, invoking the male power fantasy. While fantasy is still a mainstay of the genre, the scope and diversity of the graphic novel has broadened to include much more sophisticated subject matter, including nonfiction, biography, and compelling narratives melded from on-the-ground reporting and research from some of the world's latest war-torn and traumatized regions. Joe Sacco, who is among the vanguard of journalists advancing the graphic novel as a news documentary form, has contributed two such accounts: Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992 –1995 and Palestine (both published by Fantagraphics Books in January 2002). Ted Rall followed Sacco's work with To Afghanistan and Back: A Graphic Travelogue (Comics Lit, April 2002). On the biographical front, Publishers Weekly describes King Volume 1 (Fantagraphics Books, 1993), Ho Che Anderson's absorbing first graphic novel on Martin Luther King, as a "grand, interpretive biography" that is "powerfully cinematic."

The Young Adult Library Services Association has begun its own proselytizing for the graphic novel, holding a heavily attended preconference (175 librarians) in Atlanta this past June, and launching a Web site to accompany the "Get Graphic @ Your Library" theme for Teen Read Week, to be held October 13–19.

While public libraries have proven themselves a viable market for graphic novels, school libraries have been slower to catch on, due to the less-than-obvious connection to curriculum. However, with the advent of a more serious and ambitious body of nonfiction work, high school and middle school librarians should consider bolstering their graphic novel collections. Perhaps no book better embodies the raw perspective and insightful imagery that a graphic novel can provide than Art Spiegelman's Maus. This seminal work gave rise to the graphic novel as a serious and sophisticated art form, with Spiegelman chronicling his parents' struggles as survivors of the Nazi death camps.

A Japanese version of the genre called manga is now defying gender. Weiner recalls giving a talk to a high school graphic novel book club and being surprised that the club consisted of nearly 50 16-year-old girls intent on hearing everything he knew about manga. Just as surprising are librarians' observations that manga and the Japanese style of animation known as anime are sparking a keen interest among teens about Japanese culture and language.

In her introduction to the Teen Read Week Web site, Berkeley (CA) Public Library's Francisca Goldsmith writes "Graphic novel readers have learned to understand not only print, but can also decode facial and body expressions, the symbolic meanings of certain images and postures, metaphors and similes, and other social and literary nuances teenagers are mastering as they move from childhood to maturity."

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