Great Graphic Novels Heats Up!
As we close in on the last month to nominate new titles everyone is in a mad scramble to find the great graphic novels which cannot be overlooked. The field nominations are hopefully going to come reeling in now. It really has been incredible to try and develop this list. Attempting to balance all the different types of graphic novels, to have all ages represented, to find books that speak to the Young Adult condition…it’s really an incredible mandate. Of course that boils down to hours and hours spent reading comic books. Of course we are not just READING them, delving into them, devouring them, giving them close readings and giving them a pass when they are just good and not GREAT. If you have a graphic novel which has blown you away this year please take the time to give it a field nomination. We want to hear from you (and find new books that are incredible).
Addiction, gender roles, and coming of age are all themes we teen librarians are asked to find books covering on a regular basis. Not only does The Dark Tower: Treachery skillfully tackle all three, the art is nothing short of breathtaking, thanks to the multi layered computer assisted process employed by illustrators Jae Lee and Richard Isanove. Writers Robin Furth and Peter David (under the watchful all-seeing eye of Stephen King himself) continue to create new Dark Tower content which is, speaking as a fan of the original print series, worthy of the original. Many libraries, my own included, house these books along with the new graphic adaptations of King’s The Stand with the adult books, but I have no qualms about suggesting the Dark Tower graphic novels to my mature teen horror fans, especially since the protagonists are all teens themselves. (Craig Bertuglia, Teen Services, Houston Public)
Manga still seems to be what teens want to read in the graphic novel genre at our library. I’m not a librarian, but I recently taught a workshop for teens at the library on drawing manga. What surprised me most was that although I used images from titles I knew they were reading to get them excited, they were more interested in the images referenced from classic manga they hadn’t read like Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka, Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, and Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro. Most teens I’ve spoken to don’t realize that Hayao Miyazaki has written graphic novels, nor are they familiar with Rumiko Takahashi’s early work like Maison Ikkoku or Urusei Yatsura. Hot new gen titles will emerge every year, but looking back to previous generations of manga is a great way to build a robust collection that engages teens.