YBP was host on June 27 to Rich Johnson, director of book trade sales at DC Comics. Rich had met Dana Courtney,
one of our Approval Division buyers at Book Expo America the previous month, and the two decided that a "Graphic Novels 101"
course was just the thing to educate us on the history of this increasingly popular format. Rich met with bibliographers and
buyers, as well as representatives from marketing and cataloging.
The comic era as we know it began in 1938 with the creation of Superman. He was followed by Batman in 1939 and Wonder Woman
in 1940. In 1955, the publication of The Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederick Wertham almost destroyed the industry.
Wertham's claim that comic books were evil and that reading them caused juvenile delinquency brought about congressional hearings
that resulted in heavy censorship under the Comics Code Authority. Sales plunged and wouldn't pick up again until the 1960s with
the introduction of the Batman television show.
DC Comics was born in the early 1930s and started out by collecting their newspaper comic strips and publishing them as
collections (see Rob Norton's Profiler's Pick), soon moving on to original stories as
they ran out of newspaper material. DC Comics now has some of the most well-known and respected authors and artists in
the industry: Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame, Frank Miller author and artist of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore
author of Watchman and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Alex Ross artist of Kingdom Come. Other industry leading
publishers include Marvel, Dark Horse, NBM, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, CrossGen, TokyoPop, and Viz Communications.
The term "graphic novel" was coined by Wil Eisner, the writer/artist whose A Contract with God, published in 1978, comprised
four short stories of "sequential art." As Eisner and others continued to explore this medium, comics broke away from primarily
superhero stories for kids and the market grew to the point where now almost 70 percent of comics are bought by adults.
The book that finally brought graphic novels to the literary world was Art Spiegelman's 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus and
its story of a family destroyed by the Holocaust.
While the term generally used is graphic "novel," the format actually includes history (Maus), journalism (Joe Sacco's
forthcoming The Fixer), and autobiography (Marjane Satrapi's recent Persepolis), as well as the more common humor, mystery,
historical fiction and erotica. Apparently the medium has been around long enough that now we can start writing about the
works themselves: In December The University of Alabama Press will publish Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman's
"Survivor's Tale" of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis.
As YBP begins to more closely examine the area of graphic novels, we are interested in hearing what our customers think
of this material and how they would like us to treat it. For those libraries with art plans, you'll need to let us know
if you want to see this material for its art content, as it's almost never classed in art. We intend to bring in more
and more suitable material for treatment on AP Plus! and hope you'll find our selections appropriate for your collections.
Your comments as always, are welcome.
Published by YBP Library Services
999 Maple St., Contoocook, NH 03229 USA
v: 800.258.3774 f: 603.746.5628
w: www.ybp.com
e: academia@ybp.com
