This series of 10 articles were written for the local newspaper with the intent of encouraging adults to check out and read graphic novels at our local library, Eureka Springs Carnegie Library. “I thought graphic novels were for reading under the covers at night with a flashlight,” said one of the people associated with the newspaper. They were glad to learn otherwise, and I hope you are, too!
First published in Eureka Springs Independent. Thanks!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults, #1
Intro: Topics
By William E. Beaver
For those who enjoy both reading books and watching videos, you may find a whole new genre to explore and experience in the form of “Graphic Novels.” And for those who take pleasure in more mature topics aimed towards adults, we are all in luck, because the publishing world has exploded in the past 15-20 years with a vast array of graphic novels for adults…and our local library system has a great selection of them!
Do you like reading and/or watching non-fiction? If so, there are graphic novels about biographies, memoirs, history, and most scientific disciplines. If you prefer fiction, you can find graphic novels of classic literature, cutting edge fiction, mysteries, and romances.
Graphic novels cover the whole range of themes you would find in print books and Netflix videos, including: LGBTQ topics; pioneering women from the past who have been overlooked; Native American experiences and answers to their current challenges; sacred text-based such as Biblical stories; mental health issues in the world of modern medicine; persistent effects of slavery down through the generations; and all the latest political developments such as refugees, climate change, war zones, or women’s rights.
Foodies can read about travels abroad that focus on cuisine or growing up with a chef for a mom; arm-chair wanderers can go all over the world and even time-travel; WWII buffs can read about the war from the points of view of The Greatest Generation’s heroes, Holocaust survivors, Hiroshima survivors, or boomer kids of shell-shocked warriors.
There are even graphic novels about comics, their history, their effect on society, how to create them, and even philosophical and academic expositions on comics/graphic novels.
I’ve not yet mentioned men in tights or busty women. If you want those, there are graphic novels with hero themes for the adult, too.
Adult-oriented graphic novels are usually printed by small independent publishers who feature cutting edge writers, artists, inkers, and letterers. Many of the creators are women, people of color, LGBTQ, and other marginalized people. The sheer breadth of topics covered by graphic novels is as wide as any other river of art, and the talent runs just as deep.
Two different adult-oriented graphic novels I wish to recommend today cover topics mentioned above. Both are available through the Eureka Springs Library. One is Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists, by Mikki Kendall. It has clean lines, good coloring, legible lettering, and tells an incredible history of women’s advances toward social equality through one-page biographies of women throughout history and geography. The second is a graphic adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood and adapted/drawn by Renee Nault; the art supports the theme of this classic novel.
Now go on a scavenger hunt in your local library for the topic you want to read about…and see!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults, #2
How to Read Them
By William E. Beaver
Get ready for a new adventure in reading!
In order to convey their topics in a combo of both words and visuals, makers of graphic novels draw on all their creativity, experience, knowledge, and skill to give you the reader/viewer a whole new encounter with a book.
Reading graphic novels requires a different approach than from reading a text-only book, from reading the funnies in newspapers, or from watching a movie. Reading both words and pictures for a book-length story—fiction or non-fiction—requires all of your own creativity as well.
Graphic novels challenge both side of the brain: you must understand the words and their meanings while simultaneously grasping the intent of the pictures and their symbolic meanings. This is no small task, and can often require you to re-read the graphic novel and to re-view it, in order to grok the entirety of the author’s and artist’s intents.
Sometimes it’s not just about understanding the storyline; sometimes the artwork in and of itself is captivating. I have often found myself viewing a graphic novel by simply looking at the pictures without reading the words. Page by page, through to the end. Some artwork is simply that good.
Some graphic novels have such a compelling story line that I will read them from front to cover, just the words, as quickly as I can. Then, once I know the story, I will go back and re-read it with a focus on the visuals as well. Very good graphic novels will have me reading them three or four or more times, focusing on one element or the other, and then both together.
I love how these captivating graphic novels engage all parts of my brain.
Alison Bechdel, of “Dykes to Watch Out For” fame, wrote a blurb for a graphic novel that includes this phrase: “…whose plot pulls you forward as insistently as the images demand that you linger.” That is the definition of an excellently-composed adult-themed graphic novel.
There are two graphic novels in our local library system that encapsulate for me this near-perfect marriage of story and artwork. One is a non-fiction account of the background to Alice in Wonderland, written and drawn by Bryon Talbot, titled Alice in Sunderland. The other is a fiction story, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and drawn by Emil Ferris. Bechdel’s quote above comes from this book’s back cover, and I couldn’t agree more with her characterization of this graphic novel.
Now, it’s time to get yourself down to one of our local libraries and find your own combo!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults, #3
Framing Comics
By William E. Beaver
Much like we need to frame a house before we can put up exterior siding or interior drywall, graphic novel creators must build their stories with a visual flow. This is most often done with frames, a type of panel.
Panel frames have a border, a box that frames the action inside itself. These frames help separate the different scenes from each other. They help convey a sense of time, as one frame following another creates movement over a duration.
Most books published today fall within a limited range of height and width. Each page can only hold so much visual information. Therefore, there are usually a set number of frames used by most graphic creators: one per page; two per page, laid out either horizontally or vertically; four per page, with two across and two high; six per page, with two across and three high; nine per page, with three across and three high; and so on.
The frames help convey a sense of order to the story. Each frame often captures one scene in the plot that helps the reader move forward, with the following frame conveying the next scene. One is tempted to think of each frame as a captured picture in a video; put all the pictures together and you’ve got a moving story in a book…
Not quite so simple.
Graphic works are not movie-based books. In fact, what happens in graphic novels between frames—what we readers do not see—is just as important as what happens inside the frame.
This comes to the heart of graphic books.
We the readers are active participants in the story line: we add to the story those components that are not actually shown on the page. We add the transitions from scene to scene; we fill in the empty slots of action; we complete each page using our own imagination.
And in the process, we become participants in and co-creators of the story, fiction and non-fiction alike.
As mentioned last week, reading graphic novels engages both sides of the brain because it requires us to appreciate the visual aspects of the work as well as the language aspect. Frames in graphic novels further engage us by what they omit; we are helping create the story.
There is a whole philosophy to panel construction in graphic works. This article just touches one small corner of what frames can achieve in a work. To see the variety of framing in graphic novels, I can suggest the following, all available at our local Carnegie Library.
The Boy, The Mole, the Fox and The Horse employs one panel per page; it is a simple but very elegant story, delightfully told with beautiful brushwork.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic uses frames in a traditional way, but with the utmost skill; each panel decision by Alison Bechdel—the artist—helps convey the story and move it forward.
Monstress, a fantastic fantasy series, uses frames in a typically-creative fashion for action comics: frames change size and shape or disappear completely.
Then there’s Our Work is Everywhere, a stunningly well-done rendition of interviews of transgender people; there are next to zero frames in the whole book. Perhaps symbolic of the fluidity of categories that transgender people exemplify?
Explore the library’s graphic novel selection to see what frames your life!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #4
Drawing Comics: Lines
By William E. Beaver
Thus far we’ve seen that graphic novels cover a wide range of topics, that they capture the full brain’s potential by tapping into both the rational and artistic sides, and that comics are largely organized through panels, often bordered by frames.
Now we can appreciate what’s inside the frames: the artwork. Like many a sketch artist, let’s start with the simplest art stroke: the line.
Graphic artists use many different media: pen and ink, pencil and graphite, brush and ink, watercolor, pastel, paint, and digital. Most also use lines. Lines are drawn around the panels to create frames; lines are used to draw bubbles around the words spoken. Most make their initial sketches with simple lines. And many artists stick with lines to create the finished work as well.
Think of the comics in print media such as newspapers or The New Yorker, or editorial comics you can see on the web: they are largely line-based works of art. Some of the graphic books I’ve mentioned in a previous article also follow the stereotypical line-based format of comics: Fun Home is one. Others I haven’t mentioned are Mission in a Bottle—about how the Honest Tea company began—and What Unites Us—the reporter Dan Rather’s testimony to what makes America great already.
Lines mastered by these artists can evoke just about any image in a reader’s brain, creating the scenes and stories that we enjoy. We can see in these simple lines the emotive expressions of characters, complex city scenes, spaceship interiors, and the wonders of nature. While the use of lines can get more complex, in these simple line-based graphic works, our brains can focus more on the topic being covered, but might miss out on the craftmanship expertly rendered to carry that story forward.
Lines can become more of an artistic focus in graphic novels by the sheer complexity of how they are rendered. I think of My Favorite Thing is Monsters with its heavy use of cross-hatching as one example. Emil Ferris uses colored and graphite pencils to create a stunning work through an almost total reliance on lines to convey dreams, horrors, mundane daily life, emotions, and even the characters’ interiorscapes. She’s a master of the line.
Another beautiful way to expand the artistic use of lines is with brush and ink, one of my favorite approaches to graphic works. Brush and ink begin to cross the boundary between a strict reliance on lines and the use of planes—colors—to convey imagery. I think of Habibi by Craig Thompson or Peter Kuper’s adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Anything done by Craig Thompson has the fluidity of life drawn into every brushstroke. Kuper’s artwork is denser and heavier, evoking the ‘present’ narrator’s situation with pen and ink and the narrator’s ‘past’ story with black pencil and ink wash.
All the books mentioned above are available through our local library system. So draw yourself a line down to your library and enter a whole new universe of imagery!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #5
Drawing Comics: Colors
By William E. Beaver
Last week we looked at the importance of lines in creating graphic novels. Leonardo da Vinci urged artists to avoid lines and to instead render their subjects in terms of light and shadow only. In comics, da Vinci’s approach is usually not practical, but artists do employ light and shadow as well.
Even Bechdel’s Fun Home, mentioned previously, which is so line-dependent, also uses color to convey shading and depth. Many graphic novels use lines and flat colors, such as in The Incredible Nellie Bly, drawn by Sergio Algozzino. He uses lines and sepia colors, all rendered digitally, to evoke the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when this fabulous woman journalist plied her trade. His artwork supports and carries the story forward.
Some artists can employ just lines to create depth, but most use color, or inking. Think again to the old-style newspaper comics with their 3- or 4-color newsprints. Will Eisner’s The Spirit, often considered the earliest forerunner to graphic novels and printed in serial form in newspaper inserts, relies heavily on coloring to convey depth. Our library has a ‘best of’ collection of the long-running series.
We can look along the continuum to see some artists who use lines sparingly and go more full on with color. Panther, an allegory about dealing with grief, is drawn by the Flemish artist Brecht Evans with watercolors and no lines or frames. With the young mourning girl, we readers are also drawn into a surreality fed by loss and confusion.
The Crackle of the Frost, a complex story about adult regret and lost love, is drawn by the famous Italian artist Lorenzo Mattotti in pastels. By avoiding the use of lines, the artist is supporting the story’s ambiguous boundaries between the present and memory, between love and loneliness.
The artwork of The Fifth Beatle is incredibly complex. Andrew C. Robinson, the artist, uses painted wood, illustrations on Bristol boards, watercolors, acrylic, gouache, colored inks, brushes, pens, markers, pencils, digital, and more! This hodge-podge of media, color, and presentation all support the author Vivek Tiwary’s story of Brian Epstein, the Beatle’s manager. By employing so many different media, the artist brings readers into the complex world of the 60’s, when the combining and mixing of music styles, lifestyles, and opinions were morphing so rapidly.
Another artform for graphic works relies heavily on brush and ink to create a woodcut look. Lines are used, but so much else is washed that the effect is like a printed woodblock of art. Sean Murphy’s Punk Rock Jesus is a good example of this, with the brushwork conveying the outlandish but sensitive story of a cloned Jesus who grows up to be a punk rocker.
All these books are available in our local library, so paint yourself a colorful imagination with a graphic novel today!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #6
Words in Graphics
By William E. Beaver
While some graphic works use only pictures and no words at all, the vast majority use words. How those words are conveyed in the graphic structure, however, can vary tremendously.
By far the most common way to convey words is by employing word balloons. This format is nearly ubiquitous in newspaper and superhero comics. Word balloons are such an easy format for conveying word-based information that most graphic novels also use them.
The artist must design the flow of each page: they may begin with panels and frames to give the whole page structure, then focus on each panel’s layout while still keeping the whole page’s flow in mind. When reading a well-crafted graphic novel, one will notice how even the word balloons give shape and texture to the whole page.
Indeed, whether using word balloons or not, the artist must create the graphic novel by placing both pictures and words in such a way as to give their readers the ability to understand the work and the desire to continue reading. Therefore, another very easy and common way to convey words in graphic works is by a panel of words written above or below the picture.
Allie Brosh goes to the extreme with this approach in her book Hyperbole and a Half, where she has typed words like any text-based book, but with plenty of drawn pictures to accompany those words. Her second book, Solutions and Other Problems, had me laughing in stitches by her dry sense of humor coupled with the simple but so expressive pictures.
Other artists will employ words within the pictures; the words themselves are part of the graphic portrayal. Joe Sacco’s Palestine can be cacophonous with his wild close-ups of scenes and people interspersed with his reporting in this journalistic graphic work. His words can be written large or small to convey volume or intensity, sinewy with the scenery, or block-like to simply convey facts.
One of the most impressive and creative use of words I’ve seen in a graphic work is Megillat Esther by J.T. Waldman. This graphic novel renders the book of Esther from the Old Testament, or the Jewish Tanakh, in an incredibly beautiful yet enigmatic way. It is visually beautiful but, for this non-Jewish boy, difficult to read. And yet, it is an incredibly beautiful work.
There’s a sub-genre of graphic non-fiction that is largely word-based with the pictures simply helping to supplement that text. Two I’ve mentioned in previous articles are Dan Rather’s What Unites Us, and the Honest Tea story Mission in a Bottle.
Another sub-genre, adapting literature to a graphic work, will also be word heavy if there is a strict adherence to using the full original text. But check out Gareth Hinds’ works; our library system has several of his books, some of which strictly adhere to the original text and others which are adaptations. Either case, he’s creative with his pictorial presentation, giving it equal weight to the words of literature.
All the above books are available in our library system except two; Palestine and Megillat Esther are available at the Fayetteville Public Library, which by the way has an extensive collection of adult-oriented graphic works.
So ask your librarian in your own words for a graphic novel that you might enjoy!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #7
Single Works and Series
By William E. Beaver
We’ve thus far learned that Graphic Novels for adults cover a wide and diverse range of topics; that reading them challenges both our creative and rational brains; that graphic novels are organized by frames and panels on the page; how lines and colors are important to the stories; and how words are conveyed in graphic novels through a variety of modes, such as word balloons or through different styles of lettering.
Now we look at the works as a whole, in either single sets or in series.
Many graphic novels are designed to be stand-alone books, just as many other text-based books, movies, and songs are single works. And just like these other creative expressions, graphics can vary in their complexity as well.
Some are purposefully simple in the story they are conveying and the artwork used to tell it. You & A Bike & A Road is one example, as is The Boy, The Mole, the Fox and The Horse. (Perhaps there is an inverse relationship between the length of a book’s title and its simple story?)
Other graphic works become much more complex to the point they are like large, involved fiction novels. These are books that take the same kind of attention as any text-based novel, only now we are looking as well as reading. If they are well-done, you will want to re-read and re-view the book several times, as you do any well-enjoyed movie.
Once Upon a Time In France is a complex fictional story drawn with simple lines and color palette, all contributing to the involved story of an East European Jew who migrates to Paris to become an influential businessman and then has to contend with the reality of an encroaching WWII.
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage explores in a graphic-steampunk-science kind of way the truths and what-ifs of Ada Lovelace, the woman mathematician who assisted Charles Baggage, the oft-cited founder of computers, in the 1800’s. It has lots of text, then sections of graphics, and then more text. It’s the sort of book one wants to savor and chuckle with a little at a time each night, like a fine glass of wine while sitting in your easy chair.
While individual works can be as complex as any novel, or as detailed as any science tome, there are also stand-alone works done by the same author that can be enjoyable to read in clusters.
One such author is Ottaviani, who writes science-based stories adapted to graphic novels. We have Feynman, a biography about the famous physicist, in our local library system, and Primates, about the women scientists who pioneered new ways to study our genetic cousins. He has many other science-based books as well, all well-worth reading; many are at the Fayetteville library, and include such books as Wire Mothers, Suspended in Language, Fallout, and others.
Another author to look for is Richard Geary. We are lucky to have several of his books in our library system, including The Borden Tragedy, The Lindbergh Child, The True Death of Billy The Kid, and an adaptation of The Invisible Man. Geary likes to write about murder mysteries that remain unsolved, doing much of his own research to compile the stories in as fact-based a manner as possible. His lines are simple, making it even easier to read the stories themselves. Again, the Fayetteville library has an extensive collection of his murder mysteries.
A delightful author I’ve enjoyed watching ‘grow up’ over the years is Lucy Knisley. We have several of her books at our Eureka Springs library, including Relish, My Life in The Kitchen; French Milk; Displacement; Something New; and Kid Gloves. All of these books are memoirs or travelogues told in a disarmingly honest and funny manner with simple drawings that add to the storyline.
I’m just touching the surface of what’s available at our library system. Whether stand-alone graphic works or books with similar themes by the same author, you can find just about any entertainment or information you might want in a graphic format. And next week we’ll explore graphic novel series, of which there are many high-quality ones.
So get yourself down to the library and see what book or author floats your boat!
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #8
Single Works and Series
By William E. Beaver
Last week we looked at single works and authors’ collections of books. This week we look at series. Two main factors contribute to publishing series in the graphic novels world. First is the fact that pictures, over time, take up more space than words. Stories need more pages to finish the plot.
Second, the traditional procedure for publishing graphic works lends itself beautifully to series. We’ve not mentioned them yet, but the two big comics publishing houses, DC Comics and Marvel, flourish with series.
Traditionally, comics were and still are printed in small magazine format with a small number of pages. To attract a following to a certain character, author, artist, or all the above and more, the stories are printed in segments over time. Eventually, if they are successful, the series are combined into one or more hard-cover books.
Many of the newer, non-traditional, adult-themed graphic novels continue to publish in this same traditional format. Thus we have some remarkably well-crafted and ingenious stories that over time can become as populated with complex characters as any well-written novel.
Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by a multitude of artists, is perhaps one of the most venerated series, and certainly highly complex in both theme and character. I have not yet tackled this series and will mention more about it in our last article of this series about graphic novels.
Eureka Springs is lucky to have April Griffith as our Library Director because she, too, is a fan of graphic novels. She and her staff have brought in some superior series worthy of literary attention.
The Unwritten directly tackles the challenges of the written word and just how powerful words can be, even by creating our reality.
Snow Piercer was a movie, yes. But it was a graphic novel first, and part of a trilogy. Our library has all three. This dark view of humanity’s future was originally published in French and has a European look to its artwork.
Some series border the edge of Marvel or DC with superhero-style framing, lettering, and coloring, and the strong theme of good vs. evil. Montress could be considered one such series; this fantasy-style work is great for science fiction/fantasy fans.
Y: The Last Man is interesting, thought-provoking, and also in a similar vein to more conventional comics; and yet certainly oriented towards adult readers.
Fables is a fun read. You can see how all your favorite or forgotten characters from the Brothers Grimm’s tales have ended up after so many centuries of living undercover. Expect some to be good and some to be bad, but not as you would expect from a simple reading of Brothers Grimm.
Preacher, The Wicked & The Divine, and Lucifer all directly confront the theme of evil vs. good; all with a decidedly more mature and nuanced approach than any spandex-clad character can muster up.
So visit your local library often, and find your own series to read and a new world to enter.
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #9
The Reading Audience
By William E. Beaver
This series of articles about graphic novels has been about books written with the intended audience of adults. I wish to expand our horizons a bit further.
Just as there are movies to be enjoyed by a group of mixed-age people, so the same for graphic novels. Most libraries, including Carnegie Library and the others in the CAMAL system, categorize and shelve the graphic novels in two different locations: one for Adults and one for Young Adults.
My fellow adults: please expand your browsing to include the Young Adult section. There are some excellent graphic works that are just as educational and/or entertaining as those in the Adult section.
To be sure, most of the graphic works in the Young Adult section are written with a vocabulary or story line that can be understood by younger readers; but that fact makes some of these books even more enjoyable for adults; they may be a bit easier to understand and therefore more pleasant for relaxed reading.
One genre of graphic works to look for in the Young Adult section is History. There’s Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World, by Penelope Bagieu, which profiles women throughout history who led inspiring lives in one way or another.
Some Young Adult books can be quite simple to read, but informative from a historical point of view if you know nothing of the topic. Laika, about the first mammal—a dog—to go into outer space, and Becoming RGB, the biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, are two that come to mind. I found them both interesting simply because I knew nothing about either topic.
Any books written by Jim Ottaviani are worthwhile. In the Young Adult section we have T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, and Feynman (the physicist), both science history-based topics.
A common theme in Young Adult books is—of course—the coming-of-age story. Combined with history, it can be quite interesting—and powerful—for adults. They Called Us Enemy is one such potent graphic novel, about a young Japanese-American boy interned with his family during WWII.
Speaking of coming-of-age stories, the Young Adult section has several books I like to call Dream Food. These books present the common theme with uncommonly fine artwork. The Golden Compass, adapted from the book, and which was also made into a movie, has beautiful French-style graphics that gave me plenty to dream about.
Some books are perhaps more food for nightmares than dreams. Beautiful Darkness, rendered in stunning watercolors, could be one such a book. Described as an anti-fairy tale, indeed the storyline is as disturbing as the artwork is beautiful.
Anything by Neil Gaiman will be worth your while to explore. Much of his work will be found in the Adult section, but he’s got some in the Young Adult category as well. Check out The Graveyard Books for easy-going scares, a coming-of-age story, and artwork to feed any dream.
Back over in the Adult section, you might see some books while browsing that will lead you to believe they belong in the Young Adult section. Don’t be fooled.
Talking about dream food, a previous review mentioned My Favorite Thing is Monsters. A thick book, with a complex coming-of-age theme intertwined with decidedly adult-themes, drawn in colored pencils as though on a lined school notebook, this graphic work is enthralling in both artwork and storyline.
Monstress can be mistaken as a coming-of-age book series, but the artwork and more complex storyline make this an enjoyable and challenging read for adults.
Finally, the series Fables may sound ‘childish’ from its title and from a quick glance through its artwork. But the story of what happened to our favorite Brothers Grimm characters since the Middle Ages is an entertaining adult-themed story worth exploring.
So head on down to the local library to educate and entertain your inner adolescent.
In Praise of Graphic Novels…For Adults; Article #10
Advanced Graphic Novel Reading
By William E. Beaver
This is the final article in the series: advanced reading for adults.
If you’ve found that you enjoy reading graphic novels—you appreciate how the pages are separated into panels with frames, how the words are incorporated into the page’s design, how the art media chosen by the artist enhances the storyline—then you might be ready for some more challenging reading.
You’re in luck; our library system has some excellent choices for you.
Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot might be a good place to start. The storyline in itself is intricate. Talbot explores the actual underpinnings and inspirations to Carroll’s hugely influential story of Alice in Wonderland. It’s a web-like mystery that explores geography, art, politics, social mores, the act of story-telling, and more—all in service to understanding the various influences on Carroll.
Combine that complex story with the varied art media Talbot uses, and we have a challenging book that could take one quite a while to read and digest. Highly worth it.
The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt is another densely-woven story of a highly influential scientist from the early 1800’s who we hardly ever hear about these days. The artwork conveys the hyper-kinetic energy of Humboldt, a polymath if ever there was one. Plan on lingering over this book for both the science and the artwork.
Then there is The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. I’ve mentioned this series earlier; I have not read it all yet. First, it is huge; there are four volumes of collected stories. Secondly, it is a complex weaving of modern-day myth built upon the myths of history, using Dream as the main character, his seven siblings as side characters, and many more mythological folks from every time and culture. This story is so dense and so beautifully constructed, that it has defied being made into a movie until Netflix’s recent announcement to do just that. (By the way, the horror movie called The Sandman is NOT based on this series.)
The Sandman is often acclaimed as the best graphic work ever, much as Citizen Kane is on most Best Movie lists. Start with Preludes and Nocturnes, the intro to the series, if you feel ready for some advanced experiences with graphic novels.
Then there is Unflattening. It defies genre and elevates comic art to the level of philosophy. I’ve read this book several times, and I fear I just may need to buy it so I can read it repeatedly. The book explores the limits of how philosophy can be graphically displayed, delving deep into human communication, its various formats and styles and meanings and implications. Graphic designers might like to peruse it just for ideas on how to pictorially convey ideas. Any readers will be pushed to expand notions of how, what, and why they see what they observe.
If these graphic works are not enough and you now want to make your own, our library system has books for that endeavor as well. You can start easy and read Write Your Own Graphic Novel, which is geared for a juvenile audience. This will give you a simple template for what it takes to construct a graphic novel.
Next check out Comic Book Design, which is for more advanced readers but still a good general introduction to creating your own.
And finally, anything about comics by Scott McCloud should be on your shelf if you’re serious about making your own. Luckily, you can check them out at the library first to see how well you jibe with them.
First check out Understanding Comics, now considered required reading for anyone interested in comics theory. The fact is, I must acknowledge Scott McCloud’s work as highly influential in my ability to write this series of articles.
When ready, move on to McCloud’s Making Comics, which gives you an overarching approach to creation, including details on page flow, conveying words amidst pictures, building themes, the tools to use, and more.
Well folks, that’s it. The library is ready and waiting to transport you on your next adventure; happy reading!