The Graphic Novel Boom: A Primer

Categories: Graphic Novels

Curious about graphic novels but haven’t taken the plunge yet?  Wondering what all the fuss is about?  The short answer is – comics are a lot more interesting than they used to be.

The creative explosion of “the ninth art” in the U.S. market began during the 1970s and produced one milestone after another during the next decade. Here’s a sample:

Mainstream comics veteran Will Eisner created A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories (1978), a collection of powerful tales about immigrant life in New York that he called a “graphic novel” to distinguish it from traditional comics. 

Underground comix artist Art Spiegelman founded the cutting-edge journal Raw (1980), where he serialized Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, a complex, very moving account of his parents’ Holocaust experiences, which in book form won a Pulitzer Prize (1993). 

The Hernandez brothers – Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario – self-published the first of their Love and Rockets alternative (i.e., independent, not corporate) comic books (1981), launching two long-running series featuring wonderful characters in Chicano Los Angeles ("Locas") and the fictional Central American village of Palomar (the "Heartbreak Soup" stories).

Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons collaboration The Watchmen (1987) revolutionized the superhero industry with plots, character, and dialogue of an unprecedented sophistication.

In this receptive climate, the “manga tsunami” broke onto U.S. shores at the end of the eighties, introducing even broader subject matter and inventiveness to the mix.

The energy and freedom that made these innovations possible were the legacy of the underground comix revolution. The countercultural writers and artists of the late sixties and early seventies ignored, to say the least, the intimidating Comics Code Authority that had grounded comics on the safe side since 1954. Their adventurous work, and the wider audience it earned, also led to a new direct-marketing venue, the comic book shop, where the art form could continue to expand its boundaries.

Of course, an essential factor in the graphic novels boom was the increasing publication of bound comics, a tradition in Japan and continental Europe that picked up here only during the eighties. This phenomenon broadened the market by putting more comics into bookstores and public libraries.

In fact, the basic meaning of that slippery term “graphic novel” is simply a bound comic book. New readers may be surprised to learn that some of the best-known of these “novels” are actually short stories, serial collections, or nonfiction.

For an overview of this continually exciting blend of art and literature, try these resources:

• Comic Book Encyclopedia: The Ultimate Guide to Characters, Graphic Novels, Writers, and Artists in the Comic Book Universe by Ron Goulart (2004)
• Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know by Paul Gravett (2005)   
• Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics by Paul Gravett (2004)  
• Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature by Charles Hatfield (2005)
• Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society by Sharon Kinsella (2000)
• The Essential Guide to World Comics by Tim Pilcher (2005) 
• Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book-Length Comics by Aviva D. Rothschild  (1995) 
• Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels by Roger Sabin (1996)
• Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga by Frederik L. Schodt (1996)
• Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics by Frederik L. Schodt (1983)
• The Dark Age: Grim, Great & Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics by Mark Voger (2006)
• The 101 Best Graphic Novels by Stephen Weiner (2001)
• Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel by Stephen Weiner (2003)