Graphic Novels

I’m chatting today with Edith Donnell, the Youth/Teen Librarian for the Chelsea District Library. For the last five years she has been one of the driving forces behind the all-ages Kids Read Comics event, which is held at the Ann Arbor District Library – 343 S 5th Avenue in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This year the [...]

Jane the Fox and Me By Fanny Britt Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault Translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou Groundwood Books ISBN: 978-1-55498-360-5 $19.95 Ages 9-12 On shelves September 1st Isn’t it strange how few children’s graphic novels are published in a given year? This is one of those phenomena that defy the basic tenets [...]

Back in January, we had a conversation (in reference to Derf Backderf’s Alex Award-winning My Friend Dahmer) about what makes a graphic novel “nonfiction” and the rigidity of categories like “fiction” and “nonfiction.” A couple of new comments have been added to that thread, so please head over to the above link to read the whole chain, but [...]

Today we have three very different graphic novels.  Matt Kindt’s Red Handed, a gorgeous, full-color novel with an intricately structured plot has been the source of a bit of debate.  Kimberly over on Stacked.com, while granting the novel’s interest, found its experimental structure ultimately frustrating.  And when I gave the book to one of my [...]

Ariol may not be as well known as the Smurfs, Ninjago, or Nancy Drew, but when I was at the Papercutz booth at Book Expo America last week, people couldn’t leave this book alone. It’s no problem to pick it up with book 2, as the stories are self-contained, but after reading it, you’ll probably [...]

Start your summer reading with titles from this week’s list of new releases. Jump on the Kevin Keller bandwagon with the newest issue from Archie Comics, winner of the LGBT Media awards for Outstanding Comic Book. Papercutz releases the first Smurfs Anthology of original comics in publication order, and Viz Media has the next volume [...]

Quick, what do these have in common... the 'dingy basements' in 'Fight Club' (the film), the video game Flower, a couple of novels by Harumi Murakami and E.L. Konigsburg, the bathroom in HBO’s 'Girls,' Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’s 'Empire State of Mind,' and Homer's 'The Odyssey'?

From a scratchy nib pen to splatter from a toothbrush, author illustrator Matt Phelan describes the special quality he derives from using traditional media in this clip recorded at School Library Journal's Day of Dialog.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this spring’s graphic novels, from the bad science in Darryl Cunningham's How to Fake a Moon Landing to the reality-show superheroes in Tiger & Bunny. But there are some familiar faces as well, with a new Star Trek story, a graphic-novel version of Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon, and the return of the classic Disney game manga Kingdom Hearts. There’s plenty here to keep readers sprawled in their hammocks all summer long.