Catching the Wave: Graphic Novels

"Graphic Novels 360 Degrees," a BookExpo America panel, held on Saturday afternoon, June 2, offered nothing but optimism for a category that continues to prosper in the book industry.

The session was moderated by John Davis, the director of Bookazine's Popazine graphic novels marketing campaign and a former director of book sales at manga publisher Central Park Media. Joining him were Mark Siegel, editorial director of First Second Books; Stephanie Zvirin, reviews and books for youth editor at Booklist magazine; Jessica Stockton, graphic novels and comics buyer for McNally Robinson bookstore in New York; and author Alison Bechdel, whose graphic novel/memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic -- which documents her own coming-of-age as a woman and lesbian -- has garnered critical praise and is one of Davis' "favorite books I've read in the past year."

During his introduction, Davis was quick to point out that "graphic novels have been a huge and booming growth area" for Bookazine over the past few years. "I'm really thrilled by the wild profusion of new and different graphic novels that have been published, and it seems like the audience keeps growing and diversifying. It seems like there's no end in sight." He then triggered a few smiles in the well-attended session by calling the recent surge a "graphic novel pandemic."

Bechdel, who creates the bi-weekly comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, told the audience she felt "very fortunate that my book [Fun Home] really caught this graphic-novel wave at a perfect time."

Having grown up in France, Siegel saw how graphic novels became a major part of mainstream European book publishing. While working at Simon & Schuster as a book designer and as an illustrator for children's books, including Seadogs: An Epic Ocean Operetta ("which I did in a sort of comics style," he said), and while dipping into the editorial side, Siegel saw "what was starting to grow in America."

"I feel like the conversation surrounding graphic novels is getting much more interesting," Siegel said. "I think a good example is Alison's book, which I think is one of the great books, period." Graphic novel reviews, he said, no longer start with "two paragraphs" about how comics have come into their own, but are about "the literary references, the voice of an author. The conversation is getting into some depth."

Stockton never read comics while growing up, but got into it when she started dating her fiance, "a comics geek." Soon, she wanted to head the graphic novels section at the McNally Robinson store. "I think about shelving, and figuring out where graphic novels fit is a constantly challenging and interesting problem," Stockton said. "Do you separate them into a section all by themselves? Do you put the ones geared toward younger readers into the children's section? The literary ones in the literature section? I don't know if there's a right answer."

One area of graphic novels that Stockton is very excited about is "the increasing amount of works in translation," she said. "I just read a really great one called Aya [Drawn and Quarterly], written by Ivory Coast author Marguerite Abouet and illustrated by Clement Oubrerie. Aya is an award-winning coming-of-age story that takes place in the Ivory Coast in the 1970s. Stockton, who writes about comics, graphic novels, books, and bookstores on her blog, www.writtennerd.blogspot.com, said that the mainstreaming of graphic novels is helping the category become more of a presence in bookstores. "I think it's a lot easier for mainstream bookstores to imagine graphic novels as part of their inventory when they're coming from Random House, as opposed to having to go through Diamond and other comics distributors."

Later, however, Bedchel said she's "nervous" that the graphic novel world could get filled with too much "filler" material. "I'm worried that people are going to crank out stuff that's substandard," she said. But Siegel reminded the audience that within the vast fields of filler, occasional masterworks sprout: "If you look at TV and at mainstream novels, it's 90 percent crap anyway. It takes a swamp for a rare orchid. And a lot of it might be the swamp."

Zvirin, who has been reading comics for many years, and whose favorite comic growing up was Mad magazine, said Booklist publishes a spotlight issue devoted to graphic novels. She noted that we would soon see (and read) graphic novels from a number of notable mainstream fiction writers, including Stephen King and Brad Meltzer.

"I think there's all kinds of experiments happening," Siegel continued. "What is really, really a fact is that there's a creative explosion that's taken hold. There are a lot of people with a lot of talent who are working hard in this form. The three big 'schools' -- the European, the Asian, and the American schools -- have blended and merged and cross-pollinated." He added, "I find it interesting that people are drawing from many things, everything from Klezmer music to classic literature to other comics, but mainly really drawing from life."

Booksellers should be on the lookout for a number of graphic-novel titles that were announced at this year's BEA. The Drawn & Quarterly list includes Raymond Briggs's 1980 graphic novel Gentleman Jim; an 800-page autobiographical graphic novel by Yoshihiro Tatsumi; and three new works from Acme Novelty series, authored by Chris Ware. Also spotlighted at the show were Yen Press' With the Light, a Japanese story about an autistic child; Tokyopop's English-language edition of the popular Japanese Gothic Lolita Bible (due in '08); and two key Vertigo/DC releases: The Green Woman by Peter Straub and Michael Easton, and Aaron and Ahmed by Jay Kantor. --Jeff Perlah