| Young Adult Literature and Multimedia—Resources |
The Comics Grow Up:
Graphic Novels Invade the World of Young Adult Literature
by Donna Summerlin
I grew up in a family where the Sunday comics were a tradition. As an adolescent, I read comic books for diversion and was practically addicted to the Superman comics, buying each new volume as soon as it appeared on the newsstand and reading it in the car on the way home. I remember crying along with hundreds of other readers (or thousands?) when I read the episode in which Superman ³died.² So I was intrigued when a colleague designed a Special Topics course (which was approved and offered last year at Lee) based on the graphic novel genre. When I asked him what graphic novels were, he answered succinctly, ³comic books.² I have since learned‹as a result of the reading for this course‹that graphic novels, while they share the basic medium of the comic book, generally represent a more sophisticated, developed plot line, more serious subjects (frequently), and, in fact, a genre that is gaining respect from literary scholars. The ASLC reports that circulation of graphic novels has increased at a phenomenal rate and that, with the introduction of novels targeted toward girls, the audience for this genre continues to expand (ASLC, 2006, p. 49). Avon High School media center specialist Robyn Young (2007) reports
At the Avon High School Media Center, graphic books made up less than two percent of the collection during the 2005-2006 school year, but accounted for four percent of the circulation. As a comparison, overall fiction accounts for 20 percent of the collection, but only seven percent of circulation. (p.26)
Indeed this year for the first time a graphic novel, Gene Luen Yang¹s American born Chinese, has been awarded the American Library Association¹s (ALA) 2007 Michael Printz Award for literary excellence (ALA, 2007), and a number of YAL sites now offer lists of best works in the genre, including the prestigious Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens list offered by Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the ALA.
Given that my curiosity had already been piqued, I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about this genre and have enjoyed looking at several perspectives on the definition, history, and relative value of the graphic novel format. In addition, I¹ve had the opportunity to examine and read a sampling of these works for myself and found that they range from those I would call truly ³literary,² in that they are well developed and often deal with profound and serious subjects, to others that represent lighter subject matter and contents, which I would value primarily as entertainment. Nonetheless, I find the graphic novel format to be an effective tool that I will implement in my own course on YAL and encourage my future teachers to use in their classrooms.
Since we all read the overview in the text and had the opportunity to look at a Tychinski¹s historical overview, I¹ll try not to repeat the information from those sources except to state that they offered an excellent foundation for further study. Scholars disagree about the fine line between the comic strip/comic book and the graphic novel. Libraries often lump together works which scholars would distinguish as collected comics, graphic novels, and Manga; and the dividing lines between these are not always distinct. ³Getting Started with Graphic Novels: A Beginner¹s Guide² by Penn State reference librarian Anne Behler (2006) offers an excellent bibliographic orientation to some of the standard texts on the graphic novel, as well as some of the ³must-reads² of the genre. The librarian in charge of selecting works on ³contemporary topics,² Behler adheres to Stephen Weiner¹s definition of the graphic novel as ³Œ, book-length comic books that are meant to be read as one study¹² (cited in Behler, p.17) from his landmark text, Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel (2003), and argues that this genre has ³come into its own² since the late 1970s. Other studies distinguish the graphic novel, a single plot line composed as a unified story, from serialized comics that have been collected from previously published comic issues or even comic strips. One source labels the latter as ³trade paperbacks,² rather than graphic novels. Wikipedia defines the graphic novel (GN) more broadly as a ³long-form work in the comics form, usually with lengthy and complex storylines, and often aimed at mature audiences² and distinguishes it from comic magazines primarily by the fact that both soft- and hard-cover books have a more durable binding than the comic, and by the fact that they are sold primarily at bookstores rather than newsstands (Graphic novels, 2007). The article also designated a genre called original graphic novels (OGN) for those works ³created and published as a single narrative, without prior appearance in magazines, comic books, or newspapers² (graphic novels, 2007, para. 2). Although frequently denigrated a scholarly source, this article offered an extensive overview and listed some respected texts as sources. As a newcomer to the genre, I found it very helpful as a source of general knowledge. Somehow it seemed ironically appropriate to consult such a non-traditional resource in support of an alternative literary genre like the graphic novel.
Further supporting the broader classification for the genre, at the Cleveland Public Library, I found examples of these ³trade paperbacks,² ³true² graphic novels, and Japanese Manga grouped together in a graphic novels section. In fact, this practice is recommended by Robyn Young (2007) in ³Graphically Speaking: The Importance of Graphic Books in a School Library Collection,² as preferable to subject matter classification because the graphic novels are difficult to find when blended in with fiction, nonfiction, short fiction, and biography. She explains that the change was made at her school based on a student recommendation. ³Graphic books were originally placed under the Dewey designation of 741.5, yet many students had a hard time locating them. Nonfiction books such as Spiegelman¹s Maus were placed under the subject designation, making it even more confusing² (Young, p. 27).
Historical sources dispute the claims of several works to the title of the first graphic novel, and, while some trace that history back as far as prehistoric cave drawings, others focus primarily on the development that begins with the comic books, flourishing in the 1940s here in the United States and later in Europe and other parts of the world, along with the Japanese Manga, which according to some sources seems to predate and outstrip the European and American genre and has become very popular with teens. Tychinski points to The silver surfer (1978) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as the first mass-market trade paperback graphic novel while others identify Will Eisner¹s A contract with God, and other tenement stories. Scott McCloud¹s Understanding comics (1993) is a standard text for this genre, and offers valuable understandings of history and technique. I particularly benefited from McCloud¹s discussion of the concept of closure and the reader participation in completing the parts of the story that fall between the actual framed illustrations and text. McCloud links the technique used in comics with that of film, in which a series of images is ³put together² by the viewer to create a coherent ³moving picture,² except that in comics, the space between frames is more significant, not always intended to follow in immediate fashion. However, closure is the process by which the reader makes the transition from one frame to the next, supplying that which the text omits (McCloud, pp.64-66). This explanation better prepared me to understand different styles adopted in the texts I was able to read. I found a particularly fascinating example of this in The Wizard¹s Tale by Kurt Buziek and David Wenzel (1998). Unlike the other examples I read or at least looked at quickly, the design made use of space between the gutters for both text and illustrations. Although I¹m still a novice to this genre, I felt a bit like a pro for noticing this significant difference in layout.
Since my focus is on teaching Young Adult Literature, my foray into this genre was made with a guiding question: Is this a genre I want to incorporate for my students? Does it have value for them as future teachers of middle and high school students? One of the interesting articles I found in the November 2006 Library Journal focused on a collection called Classics Illustrated, which began in 1941 with a publication in illustrated format of The Three Musketeers and eventually published 169 titles (Cornog, 2006). Although the series faltered, the concept was revived in 2003 with Classics Illustrated Junior and more recently with Graphic Classics, both of which target grades 9-12. The latter includes black and white illustrations by recognized artists and is recommended for library use by Donna Reed (2007), librarian at Newark High School, Delaware, as a series that provides a bridge for readers between entertainment and classic literature without dangers of offending critics (Reed, p. 63). I agreed with Cornog¹s assessment of these works as artistically pleasing and a wonderful alternative for reluctant readers and bridge to the classics but share her concern that they, at times, might amount to ³something between comics and illustrated abridgements² (Cornog, 2006). Although not an illustrated classic, I selected the graphic novel, The road to perdition (2003), to read because I had seen the movie. I did find that novel to read like a Reader¹s Digest abridged classic of the movie. I¹m not sure whether my orientation to text kept me from realizing all that the illustrations were designed to convey.
In ³Graphic Novels for Children² Should They Be Considered Literature?² (2006), the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Research and Development Committee argues that the genre is ³essential for a literate democracy because it allows for real diversity by presenting alternative views² (p. 50), not only stressing the alternative nature of the genre but its accessibility for reluctant readers and learning disabled students and that teaching the graphic novel may help students to develop critical thinking skills that they need to interpret what she calls ³manipulative multimedia messages² (ALSC, 2006, p. 50). This article reports that librarians and teachers support the use of graphic novels for both learning disabled students and second language learners, as well as reluctant readers. Further, they argue that even if the graphic novels are lighter reading, ³pleasure reading is effective in improving vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension for students learning a second language² ALSC, 2006, p. 50), and I would extend that argument to all students. Finally, this research indicates that introducing students to graphic novels may often lead them to more serious reading (50).
References
Association for Library Services to Children. (2006). Graphic novels for children: Should they be considered literature? Children and Libraries 4(3), 49-51. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier.
Behr, Anne. (2006). Getting started with graphic novels: A guide for the beginner. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 46(2), 16-21. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier.
Buziek, Kurt, and David Wensel. (1998). The wizard¹s tale. LaJolla, CA: Homage Comics.
Collins, Max. (2003). On the road to perdition. New York: Paradox Press.
Cornog, Martha. (2006). Graphic novels. Library Journal 131(19). Retrieved January 31, 2007, from EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier.
Graphic novels. Wikipedia. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_novel.
McCloud, Scott. (1993). Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins.
Reed, Donna. Graphic classics: Edgar allan poe. Library Media Collection 25(4), 63. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier.
Young, Robyn.
(2007). Graphically speaking: The importance of graphic books in a school
library collection. Library
Media Collection 25(4), 26-28. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from EBSCOhost
Academic Search Premier.