The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead. I have to admit that I didn't start watching it until this year, though I did try twice last year to watch it. I couldn't get into it at first, though, and it took my watching the first episode three times before I finally got into. Now that I'm into it, I'm pretty much obsessed, and I'm not the only one.

According to Wikipedia, the season one premiere of The Walking Dead garnered 5.35 million viewers, while the season one finale had 6 million viewers. From there, the number of viewers has increased for each season premiere, with the exception of season six. Wikipedia has a detailed chart of each episode's number of viewers. According to Variety, the season five premiere has the record number of viewers for The Walking Dead, at 17.29 million viewers. Forbes noted that the season seven premiere, which took place on October 25, 2016, had 17 million viewers.

The Walking Dead has also been nominated for and won multiple awards, including (but not limited to) the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globes, the People's Choice Awards, the Teen Choice Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. For a complete list of nominations and wins, Wikipedia has a handy chart.

People love The Walking Dead so much that Funko has a few different lines of merchandise dedicated to The Walking Dead, and there is plenty of fanfiction online, including a website that is solely for The Walking Dead fanfiction.

I've thought a lot about why The Walking Dead is so popular, and while one of my colleagues said he watches it for the zombies, action, and gore, another colleague and I agree that The Walking Dead is so popular because it's not about the zombies. It's about the people who have survived and are continuing to survive the zombie apocalypse. It's about humanity and how some people respond to the new world versus how other people respond (Rick versus Neegan, or The Governor, for example). As my colleague phrased it, The Walking Dead is also about how messed up humanity can be.

If you haven't watched The Walking Dead or read the novels or graphic novels, the library has you covered.

Graphic Novels
Novels
The Walking Dead Seasons 1 through 6

Are you a fan of The Walking Dead? Let us know what you love (or hate) about it in the comments--but please, no spoilers!

Recommended Comics

The year 2016 has been a wild one for the comics industry. Financially, there’s been a bit of panic: According to analyst John Jackson Miller, sales are down compared to this time last year across a wide array of indicators, from units sold to dollars made. But creatively, there’s cause for excitement. DC Comics, suffering under eternal rival Marvel’s market dominance, has launched an ambitious quasi-reboot called “Rebirth”; Marvel has followed 2015’s lucrative “Secret Wars” event with an array of intriguing new titles; and independent publishers are cranking out high-quality product across the board.
~Abraham Riesman, "The Best Comics of 2016 (So Far)"
 
It's 24-Hour Comics Day! "On this day, creative folks take on the 24 hour comics challenge: to create a 24 page comic book story, normally months worth of work, in 24 straight hours. Many participants gather at official event sites including comic book stores, schools, and libraries. Others take part in private gatherings, and many work on their own," the event website explains. In Albuquerque, you'll be able to join this frenzy of creation with our friends at 7000 B.C. at Twin Suns Comics and Games. The event runs noon-noon, and though they are not requiring registration they would appreciate an email if you decide to join - check out the 7000 B.C. website for more info, or there's downloadable information here. This event has been happening since 2004, according to the Weekly Alibi, which calls it a "DIY adventure":  "Bring your pencils, erasers, inks and paper and be ready to buckle down. Winning Coffee Co. will be on hand to provide fuel for participants."

In honor of this event - the first Saturday in October annually, if you can't make it this time - we've rounded up some recent comics that we have enjoyed or which have gotten some good buzz. Good luck, creators!

The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Volume 1, Squirrel Power by Ryan North

5,000 KM Per Second by Manuele Fior 

Was She Pretty? by Leanne Shapton 

Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld 

Patience by Daniel Clowes

Beverly by Nick Drnaso

Paper Girls, 1 by Brian Vaughan

Dark Night: A True Batman Story by Paul Dini

Rosalie Lightning by Tom Hart

Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman ad Esad Ribic

The Envelope Manufacturer by Chris Oliveros 

Poorly Drawn Lines: Good Ideas and Amazing Stories by Reza Farazmand 

The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir - A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984) by Riad Sattouf

The White Donkey: Terminal Lance by Maximillian Uriarte

The Louvre Collection: Setting Comics Creators Loose in the Louvre

Setting comics creators loose in the Louvre, and then letting a story come to them that is inspired by the works they come across. One of the premiere cultural institutions in the WORLD decided that it would be a great idea to create a "lasting bridge" between their artworks and the world of comics-and their readers. That's just huge. 
~Comixology

The Louvre Collection (or Louvre Éditions) is a series of graphic novels that have been published as a collaboration with the museum and some renowned  artists via the NBM ComicsLit imprint. The Seattle Post calls the series "an art and comics lover's treat". Each author has been given free rein to create their own story set amongst the museum's collections, and the results have been, in the words of the San Francisco Book Review, "curious and unexpected". If you are unfamiliar with the artists, check out their work online: Nicolas De Crécy studied Comic Art and the Angoulême School of Fine Arts, and later worked for Disney in France; Enki Bilal is not only a comic creator but also a film director; Christian Durieux does not appear to have standalone website, but he was born in "the European capital of comics, Brussels" and has been widely published in Spirou, a weekly comics magazine; and examples of  David Prudhomme's work can be found in a feature about the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium done by The Rumpus. 

The library system has several of these graphic novels available in the catalog! Why not give one of them a try? Some give an interesting take into the exhibits and will surely fascinate those who have been to the Louvre as well as those who have not, but want to; others are more abstract, and will entertain readers with their flights of fancy.

An Enchantment: The Louvre Collection by Christian Durieux
"Beautifully constructed in a semi-classical style, this graphic novel features a light-spirited romantic story. This latest installment in the Louvre collection tells the tale of a museum director in a waking dream after his retirement dinner where he wanders the vast halls of the museum before eloping with a muse. The magic of the vast museum melds with the ethereal storytelling to create a unique graphic novel that stands as an unforgettable experience." ~Amazon.com

Glacial Period by Nicolas De Crecy
"In this fanciful and richly imaginative story, one of the most original and important young European comic artists imagines a frozen world thousands of years hence in which all human history has been forgotten. A small group of archaeologists come upon the Louvre, buried in age-old snow, and cannot begin to explain all of the artifacts they see. Their interpretations of the wonders before them strike a humorous, absurd, and farcical tone. One of the few books coedited by the Louvre, this graphic novel features stunning illustrations as it presents a unique vision of the great museum." 

Phantoms of the Louvre by Enki Bilal
"Superstar comic artist Enki Bilal reimagines the Louvre as a ghostly place in this series of 22 portraits. The Mona Lisa , the Winged Victory of Samothrace , a reclining Christ, an Egyptian bust--these and other works of art are seen through the eyes of their own particular phantom. The motley collection of men, women, and children presented in these vignettes-- a Roman legionary, a muse, a painter, and a German officer, among others--have little in common other than their often violent demises and an eternity spent haunting the iconic Parisian museum. Bilal recounts the life stories of these lost souls in dramatic biographies that combine fiction and historical reality, often evoking the creation of the works in question. The paintings that compose this graphic novel were presented in a special exhibition at the Louvre in early 2013."

Cruising Through the Louvre by David Prudhomme 
"Author David Prudhomme meanders through the Louvre, feeling as if in the panels of a giant comic while he himself is creating his own. In this institution, all manner of people from all over the world rub elbows quietly. So he decides to cruise through the Louvre at a quick pace, not to look at the art but to observe the people and their interaction with it. He discovers: a group of students somehow stuck together just as in the shipwrecked on the Raft of the Medusa; a man behind the Seated Scribe, as if attempting to read over his shoulder; in the hall of antiquities, a woman placing her head in a lions mouth... For two hours, Prudhomme is witness to a strange silent and casual choreography, danced in the midst of one of the most prestigious museums in the world..."

*All descriptions are taken from the catalog unless otherwise noted. 

New & Novel: Graphic Novels for Kids

While many people think of graphic novels as "just comic books", the truth is that a good graphic novel doesn't simplify a story: instead, it amplifies it, drawing out details and adding emotional weight. For young or reluctant readers, in particular, a graphic novel format makes it easier to understand more complex stories. In fact, we'd argue that high-quality graphic novels are a key part of any library!
~Katherine Handcock, "Life in Pictures: Mighty Girl Graphic Novels for Young Readers About Real Life"

We've seen it time and time again - the child is looking at comic books, and the parent is trying to interest them in a "real" book or otherwise limit their consumption of that genre. It's true, comics can be inappropriate for the age group (check the ratings, T is for teen!) and there are a lot of superheroes and manga out there when you are looking to have your child read about real life. But! Françoise Mouly, art editor at the New Yorker, has been "dismayed to find not only a dearth of comics on American newsstands, but also a prevailing cultural attitude that comics were lowbrow filth, dangerous to children, and a fundamentally unserious medium,"  having grown up reading  Asterix and other comics in her native France, where comics are called "the ninth art, they stand alongside music and literature." Hannah Berry, blogging for The Book Trust, asserts:

Symbols and images can be interpreted from a very young age and are the bedrock of visual understanding before the written language, so it makes sense that they can be trusted. When you learn to read, you lose your reliance on image, and I've found that the longer it's been since a person read a picture book - ANY picture book - the harder they will find it to move some of that reliance from the text to the image. This is why people find the idea comics so childish: because it feels like regressing. In fact, it's just dusting off an old skill.

Some sites even recommend using comics as a tool to learn a foreign language. We understand that you want your child to read the classics and other literature, to not just limit their literacy to comics, but we also want you to know there are more comics out there in the 741.5s than might meet the eye. Here's a listing of some children's graphic novels - biographies, stories about overcoming diversity, and some just for fun - that you might suggest to your comic-loving child.

Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust by Loïc Dauvillier

Amelia Rules: The Whole World's Crazy by Jimmy Gownley

The Only Child by Guojing

Smile by Raina Telgemeier (also Sisters and Kristy's Great Idea by the same author)

Fowl Play by Travis Nichols

Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq - Inspired By a True Story by Mark Alan Stamaty

Drawing From Memory by Allen Say

Lily Renée, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer by Trina Robbins

Fishfishfish by Lee Nordling

Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires

 
To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel by Siena Cherson Siegel 

El Deafo by Cece Bell 

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

Pablo & Jane and the Hot Air Contraption by José Domingo

Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm

Jane, the Fox & Me by Fanny Britt 

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert

Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova  

Phoebe and Her Unicorn: A Heavenly Nostrils Chronicle by Dana Simpson

Anne Frank: the Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

Robot Dreams by Sara Varon

Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson & Grace Ellis

Paths & Portals by Gene Luen Yang

The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

Gaijin: American Prisoner of War by Matt Faulkner

Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Ozge Samancı [eBook]

Wake Up, Spring by Katherine Ferrier [eBook]

The Prison Island: A Graphic Memoir by Colleen Frakes  [eBook]

For more titles, check out "10 Great Kids Comics for Early Readers." 

 

abcreads recommends: Aya by Marguerite Abouet

Marguerite Abouet is a writer of bandes dessinées - literally, "drawn strips", in the tradition of Hergé's Tintin series and popular with French and Belgian readers. Originally from Côte d'Ivoire, Ms. Abouet (along with her husband and illustrator, Clément Oubrerie) lives in France. Aya is her most famous work:  six bandes dessinées set in Côte d'Ivoire, featuring three young girls and their families. They are translated by Helge Dascher.

Why we love Aya: Set in the 1970s, when Côte d'Ivoire was booming, the reader sees a narrative that "[belies] the news channels' unremittingly tragic narratives and unsettling images"* of African nations. Aya, Adjoua, and Bintou are friends, finishing school, going to dances, getting involved in relationships, hoping for future prosperity. Their story can be a bit of a soap opera, featuring elements such as contested pregnancies and secret second families, but the humor and vibrant characters shine through, and the art highlights the rich beauty of the culture. Be prepared to get caught up in the lives of Aya and her friends as they navigate their adolescent growing pains, all too familiar despite the difference in time and place, and steam on into adulthood.

Find them in the library catalog: 

Aya
A standalone edition of the first book in the series.

Aya: Life in Yop City
Compilation of the first 3 books in the Aya series, published in English under the titles: Aya, Aya of Yop City and Aya: The Secrets Come Out. Aya is 19, and the story is "a wry soap opera revolving around the simple pleasures of private troubles of everyday life in Yop City."**

Aya: Love in Yop City
The final three chapters of the the Aya story - "...in this second volume Aya and her friends begin to make serious decisions about their futures."** This volume also contains extras like recipes and a guide to Ivorian slang.


*from the preface by Alisia Grace Chase, PhD
**from the book blurb

Graphic Novels to Make You Think

The notion that graphic novels are too simplistic to be regarded as serious reading is outdated. The excellent graphic novels available today are linguistically appropriate reading material demanding many of the same skills that are needed to understand traditional works of prose fiction. Often they actually contain more advanced vocabulary than traditional books at the same age/grade/interest level. They require readers to be actively engaged in the process of decoding and comprehending a range of literary devices, including narrative structures, metaphor and symbolism, point of view, and the use of puns and alliteration, intertextuality, and inference.
~Robin Brenner, "A Guide to Using Graphic Novels with Children and Teens"

Graphic novels - they're not all just superheroes and manga, although those might be the most popular offshoots of the genre. These days you can learn about history, science, the media, and more from graphic novels - educators say "I wouldn’t assign a graphic novel to get specific dates and events in the heads of, say, a history student. But I would definitely assign a graphic novel...in conjunction with a textbook. A student can read it quickly, and it makes distant events live and breathe.” It's even a category on Goodreads! These days, publishers often put out a children's version of an adult book (The Omnivore's Dilemma For Kids) or a graphic version of a book (A Game of Thrones: Volume 1, The Graphic Novel), so it's unsurprising to see topics covered using the graphic novel format.

We've compiled a list of graphic novels for adults and young adults that will, hopefully, pique your fancy and perhaps slake your thirst for knowledge on a particular subject, from the science that brought you the Difference Engine to histories of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression and beyond. Like the educator quoted above, we probably wouldn't recommend any of these books be your only source of information about these topics, but we bet they help the events and issue that they chronicle come alive for you!

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown [YA]

The Great American Dust Bowl by Don Brown [YA]

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm  

The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality, and the Financial Crisis by Darryl Cunningham  

Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

Journalism by Joe Sacco

Bohemians: A Graphic History edited by Paul Buhle and David Berger with Luisa Cetti

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science by Philippe Squarzoni

The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media illustrated by Josh Neufeld

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression - Graphic Edition by Amity Shlaes

A Most Imperfect Union: A Contrarian History of the United States by Ilan Stavans 

Gandhi: My Life Is My Message written by Jason Quinn

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden

Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani & Maris Wicks [YA]

Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations by Jean-Pierre Filiu & David B

The Hammer and the Anvil: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the End of Slavery in America by Dwight Jon Zimmerman

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murdereresses, Thieves & Other Female Villians by Jane Yolen [YA]
 

In the library catalog, you can also find graphic (or "visual") biographies, such as American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, a National Book Award finalist in 2006, 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, and the loosely autobiographical The Silence of Our Friends, about a civil rights related sit-in at Texas Southern University in 1968.

If you love graphic novels, be sure to check out Lomas Tramway's Graphic Novel Club! For more graphic novels from the library catalog, try a subject search using "graphic novels".

Comics 101: Comic Books for Adults Who Don't Read Comics

Let’s clear things up right now. Age, sex, gender, religion, shape, size, reading habits, interest, political beliefs…. it doesn’t matter. Comics are for everybody and you don’t have to be “into comics”  to enjoy them. Like books, comic book genres run the gamut, you’ve got everything from superheroes to memoirs to weirdo sci-fi nonsense to sports. Just because the medium uses art to facilitate the storytelling process doesn’t mean that all comics are juvenile. Comics can be lighthearted all-ages read, but they can also be dense and violent. Story-wise, you would be hard pressed to find a comic that didn’t fit someone’s interests. Then, you’ve got your art. It’s not all just newspaper comic strip art. Some of it is photorealistic, others abstract. There’s pencil and ink art, there’s painted art, there’s computer art. Again, there’s something for everyone.
~Eric Margolis, "You Don't Have to Be 'Into Comics' to Read Comics" 

I started out with Fables, since I have a fondness for adapted fairytales. It came through as a repair job when I worked in the conservation lab at UCLA. Until then, I didn’t realize that there were comics for adults that didn’t have superheroes in them.
~Carrie, librarian

We want you to read comics! No excuses.  No exceptions. ABC Library's collection of comics (search the catalog for: graphic novels - there's a big debate on what they should be called) is exploding, and it's not all superheroes and manga - though there's plenty of those, that's not what we'll be discussing here.

Many adults say they aren't interested in comics because they are for children.  Many parents have to be convinced to let their children read comics because they consider them fun or light, not serious reading. To the first point, Scott McCloud, a comics theorist, would argue that "...our minds become the driving force behind reading a comic or graphic novel. Reading graphic novels is the most participatory form of reading, and your brain learns to read in an entirely different way." Besides the complexity of the text and drawing that a comic can exhibit, there are a whole lot of comics out there with themes suitable for mature readers these days - memoirs and mysteries and beyond. To the second point, Neil Gaiman would say: "The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them." As comic book readers ourselves, we can tell you that some of us started with Asterix and Tintin and Archie comics in childhood, later became English majors and read more than our fair share of the literary canon, and as gainfully employed adults still find time to read literary fiction - in our experience, seems like reading comics and graphic novels does not necessarily stunt your reading growth.

The other side of the coin is people sometimes tell us they find comics difficult to read.  There are a couple of books in the system that delve deep into the medium, with discussions of  the history, theory, art, and meaning of comics, cartoons, and graphic novels. We recommend, to start: Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean by Douglas Wolk and Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. Or, take a look at Scott McCloud's TED Talk about "The Visual Magic of Comics". If Scott McCloud's enthusiasm doesn't reel you in, we don't know what will.

How to do you find comics that you might be interested in? Well, Albuquerque certainly has its fair share of comic book stores, and, though we've all see the stereotypical Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, comic book retailers are not all like that! (But "How to Combat Comic Store Rudeness" is out there, just in case.) Another nice option - and a free one! - is to check the catalog at your local library! We've compiled a list below of comics in a variety of genres to get you started, running the gamut from some heavy-hitters of the genre such as Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, and Will Eisner to newer comics from different points of view.  We recommend checking a handful out to see what your comic style is - we find that if we don't like the art, it doesn't matter who the comic is by or what its subject is, we're not going to like the book - but there are many different styles out there, so don't give up on the first try!

ABC Library also has a Graphic Novel Club which meets at the Lomas Tramway branch at 2 p.m. on the first Saturday of the month. They welcome new members and don't mind if you haven't read the book! This is a great opportunity to discuss comics with like-minded enthusiasts or to find out more about the genre.

We hope you'll consider checking out some comics today! If you would like to add to our list or have questions, please let us know in the comments.


Crime/Mystery

Scalped: Volume 1, Indian Country by Jason Aaron

Richard Stark's Parker, Vol. 1: The Hunter adapted by Darwyn Cooke

Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales

Fairy Tales

Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Book One by Bill Willingham

Horror/Paranormal

Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill 

Morning Glories: Vol. 1, For a Better Future by Nick Spencer

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

The Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book One by Alan Moore

War 

The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time - A Doonesbury Book by G.B. Trudeau

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. Vol. 1 by Bryan Lee O'Malley

The Unwritten: Vol. 1, Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity by Mike Carey & Peter Gross

Doom Patrol: Crawling from the Wreckage by Grant Morrison

Saga: Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan

Air: Letters from Lost Countries by G. Willow Wilson  

Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

The Finder Library: Volume 1 by Carla Speed McNeil

Bone: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith

Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli 

Memoirs

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Aya by Marguerite Abouet

Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich

Blankets by Craig Thompson

To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel by Siena Cherson Siegel 

Quirky/Miscellaneous

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories by Will Eisner

The Graphic Canon - Volume 1 : From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons edited by Russ Kick

The Complete Concrete by Paul Chadwick

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

Fanny & Romeo by Yves Pelletier

Daytripper by Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá
 

If you want to learn more about graphic novels, consider: The Graphic Novel: An Introduction by Jan Baetens; Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World edited by Monte Beauchamp;  Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe by Tim Leong; Outside the Box: Interviews with Contemporary Cartoonists by Hillary L. Chute; and Gene Kannenberg, Jr.'s 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide.

Links

7000 BC - independent comics from New Mexico

How to Get Started Reading Comics That Have Been Running For Decades [Lifehacker]

How to Read Love & Rockets [Fantagraphics]
"The Hernandez brothers' decades-spanning œuvre can seem overwhelming to new readers, but it's actually much easier than you might think, and we've put this handy guide together to prove it. We envy the pleasures that await you."

Grovel 
Graphic novel reviews

No Flying No Tights - "Why Should I Read Comics?'

Panels
"Panels is a celebration of comics, the people who make them, and the people who love them."

Get Graphic
"'Graphic Novel' is a format, not a genre. Graphic novels can be fiction, non-fiction, history, fantasy, or anything in-between."

Internet Public Library [IPL] - Graphic Novels

Great Graphic Novels [American Library Association]

New and Novel Graphic Novels

Long dismissed as a less serious art form, graphic novels have finally started to gain more mainstream credibility over the last 20 years... The world of the graphic novel is one that spans a wide range of authors, artists, styles, and subject matter... While the distinction between graphic novels and comic books gets dicey (the term “graphic novel” was only introduced in the late 1970s), for [our] purposes...they are lengthier, meatier book-like works — and they’re all brilliant for both their literary and visual merit.
~ Brie Hiramine, "25 Essential Graphic Novels"

Graphic novels are a genre close to my reading heart. While I confess to a lack of expertise in the field of manga and only a nodding acquaintance with superhero comics (and I welcome your recommendations on these subjects!), I love to read all sorts of other graphic novels.  Sometimes other adults ask, "What's the appeal?" It's hard to pin down into words.  I've long been an avid comic reader, starting with Tintin, Asterix, Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes, Doonesbury, and Archie back in my childhood, so I've always been drawn to the medium. Perhaps it is just the combination of "literary and visual merit" in the quote above - words and pictures on the page together managing to appeal to both my English major's love of literature and my sense of aesthetics (I am very picky about the art in graphic novels in much the same way a bad reader can ruin an audiobook for me).

I asked a couple of friends what the appeal of comics was to them. We discussed whether or not, as one person said, reading comics is "like a combination of reading a book and watching a movie". Sometimes a comic will contain extras such as a copy the writer's working "script" before the art is added, and one friend was quite interested in how the comic's writer seemed to be storyboarding the action for the illustrator, including instructions such as "The scene has shifted to the next day, so the characters should be wearing different clothes". We agreed that reading comics and/or graphic novels is a fast medium, and details are easily absorbed visually.  Even though you are still only using one sense, sight, with comics you take in more sensory detail.  As another friend said:

You can do that with comics, create that immersion and empathy.  That gutter I mentioned [the space between the panels where the reader's imagination completes the story] is part of why.  Your brain is being stimulated, through language and image, to experience with all your senses, as well as emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, whatever-allys the comic's creators are adept enough to reach.  The reader in the gutter is the one actually pulling it all together, fitting the pieces of the puzzle, participating in its creation.  The comic itself is just a series of guideposts, instructions for a scavenger hunt - turn the corner here, shuffle that cobblestone, watch for the rusty nail - too late!, and then what's next?

Alas, one my friends said when he tried to suggest a graphic novel to his book club, almost none of the club's members read it and a few who tried were confused by the genre - they professed to not understand how to read comics, or at least to not understand how to follow the action from panel to panel across the page. I guess there will always be people who don't like or don't get the appeal of comics, but those who do can be pretty diehard - Albuquerque alone has two comic book conventions and at least seven dedicated comic stores.

Others sometimes ask, "What's the difference between comics and graphic novels?" Wikipedia defines the difference thusly:

A graphic novel is a book made up of comics content. Although the word "novel" normally refers to long fictional works, the term "graphic novel" is applied broadly, and includes fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work. It is distinguished from the term "comic book", which is used for comics periodicals.

That definition can be a point of contention. Writers such as Alan Moore (Watchmen), Jeff Smith (Bone), and Neil Gaiman (Sandman) have objected to the term "graphic novel" as unnecessary and/or pretentious. The author Douglas Wolk said:

Comics are not prose. Comics are not movies. They are not a text-driven medium with added pictures; they're not the visual equivalent of prose narrative or a static version of a film. They are their own thing: a medium with its own devices, its own innovators, its own clichés, its own genres and traps and liberties. The first step toward attentively reading and fully appreciating comics is acknowledging that. 

Whether you want to call them graphic novels or comics, there are a lot of good ones out there on a lot of different topics.  There are graphic (or "visual") memoirs and biographies, graphic short story collections, classics of the canon adapted to a graphic format.  There is a graphic version of the U.S. Constitution. There are graphic versions of Game of Thrones, the Millennium Trilogy, and Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake series for adults, and graphic versions of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Blue Bloods for teens. Don't hesitate to check the graphic novel bounty available in the library catalog - a search of "graphic novels" is easy-peasy in Encore, and using the categories in the left sidebar (format, collection, tag) will help you to limit your search!

For your convenience, we have compiled a list of graphic novels from the library catalog to get you started - some new, some novel, some both. The graphic novels listed are recommended for young adult to adult readers, unless otherwise noted. 

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science by Philippe Squarzoni

The Red Ruby by Lars Jakobsen [YA]

On the Ropes by James Vance and Dan E. Burr

Persia Blues: Volume 1 by Dara Naraghi & Brent Bowman

Rage of Poseidon by Anders Nilsen

The Property by Rutu Modan

The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg

Bad Houses by Sara Ryan

World Map Room by Yuichi Yokoyama

Incidents in the Night: Bk 1 by David B.

Fanny & Romeo by Yves Pelletier, Pascal Girard

Mind the Gap - Vol. 1 : Intimate Strangers by Jim McCann

The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire

A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return by Zeina Abirached [YA]

Little White Duck: A Childhood in China by Na Liu and Andrés Vera Martínez (J)

Steve Jobs: Genius By Design by Jason Quinn

Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea by Hugo Pratt

Dominique Laveau, Voodoo Child - Volume 1: Requiem by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds

Lily Renée, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer by Trina Robbins (J)

Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey by GB Tran

Bad Habits: A Love Story by Cristy C. Road [eBook]

The Rime of the Modern Mariner by Nick Hayes

Miss Don't Touch Me by Hubert

Berlin: City of Stones by Jason Lutes

Howl: A Graphic Novel by Allen Ginsberg

Bandette: In Presto! by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (J)
         
The Comic Book History of Comics  by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey


If you are a fan of this genre, the Lomas Tramway Library has a Graphic Novel Club for Adults!

Links

2014 Eisner Award Nominees   

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are considered the “Oscars” of the comics world. Named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner, the awards are given out in more than two dozen categories during a ceremony each year at Comic-Con International: San Diego. 

Comic Books vs. Graphic Novels: Let's Find a Good Fit For You!

Talking Comics with Scott McCloud

Understanding comics: Scott McCloud  on TED.com 

Excerpt: 'Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean' 

Comic Books: A freakish kind of writing

Top 10 Graphic Novels 2014