Graphic novels: telling tales visually
Graphic novels are becoming more prevalent and popular among children and teenagers. There are numerous reasons for this. Young people today are much more attuned to visual means of communication, as they have grown up with television and computers. Teachers are using graphic novels to develop visual literacy, an important skill for success in today’s visual world. Both librarians and teachers are advocating graphic novels to encourage recreational reading. Last year the wordless graphic novel, The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard by Greg Rogers was short-listed for the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year for younger readers. Publishers and booksellers are finding graphic novels (including Manga, which are Japanese comics) increasingly lucrative and thus are promoting them aggressively. Graphic novels are reviewed in library and general review sources, and in some sources are treated as just another aspect of contemporary writing.
What are graphic novels?
There is much discussion on the exact definition of a graphic novel and the differences between graphic novels, comics and comic books. Joe Sacco, author and illustrator of a number of non-fiction graphic novels, prefers the term comic book to graphic novel (Reynolds, 2005), probably because non-fiction graphic novel is an oxymoron.
For my research, I am using the definition of librarian Steve Raiteri. A graphic novel is ‘any trade paperback or hardcover book consisting of work in comic-book form’ (Raiteri, 2002, p.148). This includes book-length stories, collections of stories and works of non-fiction. This does not include collections of comic strips such as Garfield or Peanuts.
Graphics novels are a format, rather than a genre (Kan, 2003). They include many different genres and are thus accessible to a wide range of readers (Goldsmith, 2005).
Are graphic novels ‘real’ books?
The fourth edition of The Penguin dictionary of literary terms and literary theory has an entry for comics (Cuddon & Preston, 1999). The same dictionary mentions the work of Raymond Briggs under the entry for children’s books. He writes and illustrates picture books and graphic novels, but they were called books in comic strip format when he was first published in the late 1970s. Briggs’ graphic novel When the Wind Blows (1982) is discussed by Paul Gravett (2005) as an important work in his recent book Graphic Novels. Last year Briggs and Posy Simmonds, another British graphic novelist, were made Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature. Briggs said that until now ‘England has had a snobby attitude’ towards graphic novels (O'Keeffe, 2005).
In the past many teachers, librarians and others have derided comics and graphic novels as inferior to traditional text-only books (Crawford, 2003). This is slowly changing and graphic novels are being accepted as legitimate works of literature and art (O'English, Matthews, & Lindsay, 2006; Sullivan, 2002), that ‘feature sophisticated language and story lines’ (Serchay, 2004, p.28). Of course there will always be lower quality works, as with any format (Fountain, 2004; Lyga & Lyga, 2004).
The Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association has initiated a committee to choose the best graphic novels for teenagers every year. This ‘gives an aura of respectability to this format for libraries’ (Chelton, 2006, p.11).
Many university departments from varied disciplines – communication studies, literary criticism and fine arts – find comics ‘to be valid and worthy of inclusion in academia’ (Matz, 2004, p.96). The Comics Scholars’ email discussion list which ‘serves as an academic forum for those involved in research, criticism and teaching related to comics’ (Ault, 2005), is hosted by the University of Florida and attests to this. The University of Florida also hosts an annual Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, the most recent held in February 2006 and called Comics and Childhood (University of Florida, 2006).
The popularity of graphic novels
Graphic novels are becoming more prevalent and popular among children and teenagers. There are numerous reasons for this, including: the visual emphasis of much of the media in today’s world and the current publishing industry.
Movies and television shows are often adapted from comics and graphic novels (Serchay, 2004), the most recent being Superman Returns. Readers of the comics may watch the movie and movie viewers read the comic or graphic novel.
Visual literacy
Young people today, the Millennial generation (Gee, 2002), are growing up in a much more visual world than previous generations because of television, computers and the internet (Sullivan, 2002). This means they are very comfortable with visual materials such as graphic novels (Schwarz, 2002). One study of the reading preferences of 49 boys found they ‘privileged highly visual texts…[which] stimulated visual thinking’ (Wilhelm & Smith, 2005, p.788), for example, graphic novels.
The text and images in graphic novels do not just mirror one other. They interact in ways which give a greater meaning then either one would on its own (Miller, 2005; Saraceni, 2003). This ‘symbiotic relationship’ (Khordoc, 2001, p.172) can challenge the reader ‘to engage with a text in a slightly different way’ (Mahoney, 2006, p.2). Graphic novelist Jeff Smith has said, ‘One of the strengths of working in the graphic novel medium is being able to use pictures to tell part of the story’ (Blasingame, 2006, p.444).
This interplay between text and image means graphic novels are not always as simple to read as they first appear. If the reader has not had experience of this ‘visual orientation’ (Goldsmith, 2005, p.66), the skills of visual literacy must be learnt. People who do not have these skills can find comics ‘confusing, even impossible,...to read’ (Gravett, 1997, p.141). Graphic novelist Jessica Abel (2002) has produced a two page comic, accessible through the website http://www.artbomb.net/, which explains how to read a comic and is helpful for those new to the medium.
Graphic novels in the classroom
The research project, Teachers Investigate Unequal Outcomes in Literacy: Cross-generational Perspectives investigated different teaching styles. The participating teachers ‘became aware of their tendency to privilege written and verbal modes of communication over visual and multi-modal forms’ (Kerkham & Hutchison, 2005, p.117). Using ‘multi-modal communication practices,’ including visual literacy, they ‘broadened [their] knowledge as teachers about what it means to be literate’ (Callow, 1999, p.97).
Graphic novels can be one of the tools used in teaching visual literacy. Mahoney (2006) suggests teachers open their mind to the possibilities graphic novels present in the classroom. Part of his intent in writing a recent article on graphic novels in the magazine Viewpoint was to ‘discuss a number of graphic novels that might be fruitfully explored in the classroom’ (2006, p.2).
Teachers are starting to acknowledge that graphic novels can support curricula in literacy, art and critical thinking (Goldsmith, 2005). One aspect of this is using graphic novels to teach visual literacy, an important skill for success in today’s visual world.
Different learning styles of students can also be catered to with graphic novels. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner defined the ability to create and manipulate mental images as a part of spatial intelligence (Lyga & Lyga, 2004). Students who have difficulty with this, because they have trouble forming pictures in their mind of what they are reading, may not enjoy reading (Beers, 1996; Paxton, 2003). Graphic novels could help these students in providing images to complement the text and help with the students’ understanding of what they read (Lyga & Lyga, 2004; Norton, 2003).
A number of Australian school libraries are developing graphic novel collections, including the Emanuel School Library (Lee, 2004) and Barker College Library (Laycock, 2005). Marie Green, teacher librarian at Ocean Reef High School Library developed a graphic novel collection in the late 1990s and she discussed the numerous curriculum areas in which graphic novels can be used (Green, 1998).
James Sturm teaches in the degree in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the U.S. He takes his college students to schools to conduct comic art workshops with children and teenagers. One was a school for homeless children and the week-long workshop was on how to make a comic book. The teacher warned Sturm that the children had short attention spans and had a tendency to play up. The students loved the workshop and their teacher ‘was astonished by the energy and enthusiasm her students were able to maintain throughout the week’ (Sturm, 2002a).
There is evidence that graphic novels lead to reading of other text-only materials (Haugaard, 1973; Krashen, 2004; Weiner, 2003), which is why some adults like children reading graphic novels. Graphic novel proponent Paul Gravett believes this is a ‘backhanded compliment’ and graphic novels ‘are worth reading in their own right’ (Gravett, 2005, p.11).
Recreational reading
Both librarians and teachers advocate graphic novels to encourage recreational reading (Blackburn, 2005; Sullivan, 2002), the importance of which has been backed up by the research (Gorman, 2003; Krashen, 2004; La Marca, 2004).
Lyga and Lyga (2004) surveyed school librarians who had graphic novel collections and the reason most cited for having graphic novels was that they inspired reluctant readers and improved attitudes to recreational reading. In some of the surveyed schools, teachers would recommend graphic novels from the school library to students who said they didn’t like to read and the students would happily take them.
The publishing industry
The publishing and bookselling industries are contributing to the popularity of graphic novels. They are finding graphic novels (including manga, which are Japanese comics) increasingly lucrative and thus are promoting them aggressively.
This began when Maus (1986) by Art Spiegelman, a graphic novel about the author’s father’s survival during the Holocaust, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. This allowed the general public ‘to notice that the comics format could be used far more extensively than previous creators and audiences might have imagined’ (Goldsmith, 2005, p.9).
Graphic novels are now sold in bookstores, whereas during the 1980s and 1990s they were only available in specialist comics shops (Goldsmith, 2005). It is bookstore sales which have caused the increase in graphic novel sales in the last few years, and this is being driven by Manga sales (Reid, 2005). The US market has more than tripled in the last four years (Griepp in Reid, 2006a). US retail sales in graphic novels rose 18% in 2005, to US$245 million (Reid, 2006a). The New York Times noted earlier in the year that graphic novels, particularly Manga, are one of the ‘few rapidly growing areas of the publishing business’ (Wyatt, 2006).
Traditional comics publishers DC, Marvel and Dark Horse all publish graphic novels. Other publishers have started graphic novel imprints, for example, Scholastic, Hyperion and Penguin (Cart, 2006) and many smaller US publishers are doing the same (Zvirin, 2006).
Penguin’s imprint Puffin Graphics has recently published a number of classics as graphic novels. These include Macbeth, The Wizard of Oz and Black Beauty, and are aimed at 8-12 year olds. Virgin Books is planning to publish a graphic novelisation of Buddha’s life by self-help author Deepak Chopra (Reid, 2006b). The master of Japanese comics, Osamu Tezuka, has already written a manga life of Buddha (2003). Papercutz, an imprint of NBM, has republished The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Zorro as graphic novels.
Graphic novels are increasingly reviewed as just another aspect of contemporary writing in The New York Times and other sources (Sturm, 2002b). In many library review sources graphic novel reviews have a separate section, for example, Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, and Voice of Youth Advocates. Although the number reviewed in these sources is tiny and for more extensive reviews, specialist comics sources must be accessed, for example, The Comics Journal and online reviews (Goldsmith, 2005).
US review magazine Booklist has an annual Graphic Novel Spotlight issue, the most recent being the 15th March 2006 issue. The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy featured graphic novels in the review section of the February 2006 issue.
Australian graphic novels
There has been limited discussion in the Australian literature about graphic novels. Although as more school and public libraries start to collect graphic novels this is changing.
There are also very few Australian graphic novels. A decade ago Toby Burrows discussed Australian comics, saying, ‘They have largely been limited to quirky, satirical material, and to a burgeoning range of small independent titles with low circulations’ (1994, p.1). Most Australian comics published today are found online or in zines. Zines are self-published, low print run, often ephemeral publications (Bartel, 2004; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). They can be hard to find and don’t stand up well to library lending.
Last year the wordless graphic novel, The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard (2004) by Greg Rogers was short-listed for the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year for younger readers. The mostly true story of Matthew & Trim (2005) written by Cassandra Golds & illustrated by Stephen Axelsen was listed as a notable book in the Children’s Book Council of Australia awards list of 2006. The storyline follows Matthew Flinders and his cat Trim, and it has been described as a graphic novel of adventure and intrigue.
Joshua Wright’s books, Plotless Pointless Pathetic, Hapless Hopeless Horrible and Goom have comic sections, but are not graphic novels.
Julie Ditrich, Bruce Love and Jozef Szekeres (Ditrich, 1995) and Shane McCarthy are Australian authors and an illustrator whose work has appeared in US comics, ElfQuest and Batman, respectively.
Hopefully the dearth of Australian graphic novels will change in the near future, as Australian publishers find comics and graphic novels more profitable.
Citation
Snowball, C. (2006). "Graphic novels: telling tales visually" Synergy, 4(2), 18-22.
