Picture this: a novel told in art
Sunday, November 28, 2004 12:23 AM PST
By Chris Skaugset
Printable version
E-mail this articleThe biggest thing these days in young adult publishing is the graphic novel.
At first glance a graphic novel looks like little more than a large, book-sized comic book from your youth. Graphic novels can be nothing more than a longer version of a comic book such as the graphic novels involving superheroes such as Superman or Batman.
However, they can also explore normal human existence with stories not unlike pure text novels but instead using illustrations to tell much of the tale.
Telling stories with illustrations has been around as long as the first cave paintings from Lascaux, France, and has continued to this day in a variety of forms. However, it is important to remember that not all graphic novels are written for young children. Most are written for young adults and there are even those that are written for adults.
The Longview Public Library has these titles:
-- "Mars" series by Fuyumi Soryo. "Mars" is a popular teenage romance series of Japanese manga (graphic novels) about two opposites who meet and fall in love.
-- "Bone" series by Jeff Smith. This renowned series chronicles the Bone cousins in what has been described as a Tolkienesque fantasy adventure.
-- "Saga of the Seven Suns" series by Kevin J. Anderson. This science fiction series is being published in conjunction with Anderson's novels of the same name.
-- "Amazing Adventures of the Escapist" by Michael Chabon. In Chabon's award-winning book "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," the main characters create a comic book character called the Escapist. Chabon has made that fictional comic come to life in a new graphic novel.
-- "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" by Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki is well known for his animated movies such as "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away." This is the multi-volume graphic novel based upon his second movie of the same name.
-- "Orbiter and Global Frequency" by Warren Ellis. The former is an excellent science-fiction mystery while the latter is a "Mission Impossible"-like story covering the deeds of a group and their world saving exploits.
-- "Blankets" by Craig Thompson. Blankets is a poignant memoir done in a graphic novel form that touches upon issues of growing up, friendship and separation.
-- "Miss Remarkable and her Career" by Joanna Rubin Dranger. With the portrayal of a real woman and her life, Rubin Dranger has written an award-winning book about the uncertainty of life choices.
-- "One Hundred Demons" by Lynda Barry. The panels in this collection are semi-autobiographical and the demons are the objects in the author's life that remind her of her emotional past.
-- "Jimmy Corrigan" by Chris Ware. Ware follows the sad fortunes of four generations of men, examining themes of abandonment, social isolation and despair within the confines of Chicago over the last century.
-- "Tom Strong" by Alan Moore. Moore is well known for his "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (from which the movie was based) and other comics. Tom Strong is a scientist hero in the tradition of a science fiction pulp story combined with modern day realism.
-- "Batman Archives" by Bob Kane. Collected in this volume are the first of the Batman comics. Not the cheesy Batman of Adam West but the dark, born of violence Batman as he was first created.
-- "Maus, Maus II" and "In the Shadow of No Towers" by Art Spiegelman. Spiegelman's Maus books are a stirring and accurate depiction of the Holocaust and its survivors (including both of the author's parents) with mice as the main characters. "In the Shadow of No Towers" is Spiegelman's response to 9/11 and its aftermath.
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