January 30, 2007

Going Graphic (Deseret News)

Graphic novels are a loose genre comprising lengthy comic books — often hundreds of pages long — that contain literary elements such as a plot and characterization. Some graphic novels feature favorite comic figures, such as Superman. Others are fantastical adventures, Japanese comics, or attempts to retell Shakespeare.

[....] He recommends adults curious about graphic novels start with "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" by Art Spiegelman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the author learning about his father's experiences as a Jew in Poland during the Holocaust. -Laura Hancock

[I wonder what "loose" means here because both comic books and graphic novels are capable of achieving unity in an Aristotelian sense, although I believe graphic novels accomplish that task more successfully due to its independence from serials, but I notice nothing is said here about the content.

I commend Dr. Stephen Gibson for choosing Maus as an option for graphic novel reading, but as a starting place, I might suggest Will Eisner's A Contract with God instead since that title is an "original" graphic novel. I recently fielded questions from friends and colleagues about how graphic novels might be incorporated into college English classes. For Introduction to Literature-type courses, I suggested titles such as Watchmen, Maus, Sandman, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen along with McCloud's Understanding Comics and Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art. For Creative Writing, I recommended those same titles, except I would use Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative and McCloud's Making Comics. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 12:14 PM | Comments (1)

December 31, 2006

More than doodles to this story (Buffalo News)

From there, Brunetti arranges about 80 comic strips - everything from a few simple panels to snippets from full-length graphic novels - in a rough parallel to the evolution of a work of graphic fiction. We move from simple drawings and sight gags to densely illustrated, or experimental, examinations of sex, economics and the human condition. -Dan Murphy

Posted by kuechebj at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 30, 2006

Jim Rugg Aims to Catch Your Eyes with "Plain Janes" (Comic Book Resources)

As DC Comics recently announced, the comic book company behemoth announced a new line of comic books aimed at the broader female audience, with a new imprint called Minx. The first book scheduled to hit in May is the 176 graphic novel "Plain Janes," from writer Cecil Castellucci and artist Jim Rugg. -Arune Singh

Posted by kuechebj at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2006

Spring 2007 Book Order (Discourse Chronicle)

[Here is my list of assigned textbooks for my freshman composition students next semester with rationales:

Writer's Harbrace Handbook (Third Edition)
Texas A&M University uses the Harbrace Handbook as a standard adoption, but our department is not switching to third edition until next year, due to custom cover requests. Despite that, I received permission to assign this new edition early because I learned about a new chapter on visual rhetoric after a recent meeting with its author, Dr. Cheryl Glenn.

Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers (Fifth Edition)
An excellent collection of popular culture essays about topics ranging from Barbie dolls to comic books and film. I chose this text as my reader because my students provided feedback wishing for in-class examples that may seem more familiar to them. I may develop lessons from its readings, but more importantly, I am assigning oral presentations about them as a means of encouraging in-class participation on a regular basis. I am also able to speak better on popular culture than some other topics, thus improving my teaching due to increased confidence over material.

Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud's text discussing comic books in comic book format. I assigned a few chapters from this book already and students responded extremely well and claim McCloud's presentation helped them learn difficult concepts such as Aristotle's Model of Argument (Ethos, Logos, Pathos). Many of its chapters relate with our four paper topics and will act as a supplement to our handbook readings.

Writing Traditions
A compositional exercise workbook containing sample student essays and covers concepts such as summary and paraphrase, plagiarism, MLA format, peer review, and others. Non-negotiable.

Typical American
Gish Jen's novel about Ralph, a Chinese immigrant graduate student working on his PhD in Engineering, and how him and his family become Americanized. Non-negotiable. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 12:49 AM | Comments (2)

November 03, 2006

The Day the Music Died (Wired)

Gene Luen Yang is a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area who also happens to be a fine illustrator. He produced a graphic novel (or "comic book," as we used to call them), American Born Chinese, which has been nominated for a National Book Award in the young people's literature category.

I have not read this particular "novel" but I'm familiar with the genre so I'm going to go out on a limb here. First, I'll bet for what it is, it's pretty good. Probably damned good. But it's a comic book. And comic books should not be nominated for National Book Awards, in any category. That should be reserved for books that are, well, all words.

This is not about denigrating the comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it. This is not to say that illustrated stories don't constitute an art form or that you can't get tremendous satisfaction from them. This is simply to say that, as literature, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It's apples and oranges. -Tony Long

[From Ted. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 02:53 PM | Comments (2)

October 13, 2006

Images (Wombat's World)

Ironic, because the book is all about image: the vision of the Green Knight when he arrives amid the Yuletide revels; the image of perfection that Gawain's shield represents, a pentangle on one side and Mary on the other; the picture of the perfect chivalrous knight that Gawain finds burdensome when he's face to face with an avid reader of romances and doesn't feel up to the role; and the picture of heroism that Gawain measures himself against -- and finds he is lacking. -K. A. Laity

[Kate is referring to the cover of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by W.S. Merwin and how it relates with the story. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)

Sanders lives life full of books (Salt Lake Tribune)

No, Sanders has full-fledged bibliomania. The bookstore owner exhibits all the classic symptoms of the disorder listed by Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia: buying "multiple copies of the same book and [the] accumulation of books beyond possible capacity of use." -Lynda Percival

[Joel Pace, an undergraduate mentor and friend of mine, experiences bibliomania often and frequently as he collects rare books for his research with Wordsworth and Transatlantic Romanticism. I remember him smelling his books and that seemed odd to me because I cannot smell. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:22 PM | Comments (2)

Read Comic Books on Your Nintendo DS (Joystiq)

comicbookds.jpg
Joystiq's sister site DS Fanboy recently posted about a homebrew effort called Comic Book DS that lets you transfer comics from your computer and read them book-style with the DS flipped on end. You don't have to conceal issues of Action Comics underneath an old copy of Newsweek that you swiped off your dentist's waiting table on your commute any longer. Now people will think you're doing some serious work on your stylish PDA while you secretly use the touchscreen to pan and zoom on comic panels -- pure genius. Comic book fanboys can rid themselves of their secret shame. -Kevin Kelly

[I may disagree with concealing comic books, but when Kelly mentions "Final Fantasy XXXIV: Tax Time," I find it hilarious. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2006

Graphic novels find niche at Essex High (Burlington Free Press)

Comic book superheroes have successfully fought their way onto the shelves of public libraries in the form of graphic novels. Time-resistant superhero Wonder Woman, along with such newbies as Spy Boy, Black Panther and X-Men, have hit the shelves of Essex High School library and are garnering reader wait lists that have their classic counterparts green with envy. - Emily Guziek

[A colleague in the English department mentioned a current discussion within the American Library Association about how to classify graphic novels and comic books in the Library of Congress system. Another quote I support from this article is: "It's a misconception to assume the graphic novel is a comic book," said Steve Dowd, co-chairman of the Essex High School English department. "It's a particular genre, and we recognize the role graphic novels can play for us. They can't even keep those books on the library shelves." BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2006

Graphic novels the hot new library item (Braeden Herald)

Books in graphic format can be fiction or nonfiction material. "Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island: the Graphic Novel" adapted by Tim Hamilton, and "Anna Sewell's Black Beauty: the Graphic Novel" adapted by June Brigman, are examples of fiction classics. While "Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad" by Michael Martin, and "Battle of the Alamo" by Matt Doeden, are nonfiction subjects presented in graphic format. -Libby Rupert

[Will Eisner adapted Moby-Dick, Don Quixote, and The Princess and the Frog. Eisner also presented Fagin the Jew (from Dickens's Oliver Twist) and Sundiata. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)

'Tweens' curl up with graphic novels (Christian Science Monitor)

Not everyone is impressed by graphic novels. Some teachers refuse to assign them to their students, claiming they aren't challenging to read. But many librarians and teachers stand by the books.

"Reading graphic novels leads to reading other things," says Robin Brenner, a young-adult librarian with the Brookline Public Library in Massachusetts. "There's a value in and of themselves, not just as a bridge to reading 'real books.' " -Randy Dotinga

[Believing graphic novels are not sophisticated reading is a serious mistake and teachers who are refusing to use graphic novels on those grounds must be members of an uninformed persuasion. I am convinced people holding such an attitude are hindering scholarly progress each time I read an article making a similar statement.

I am wrapping up a four-week unit on Analyzing Visual Rhetoric with my freshman composition students next week and two things made it especially hard. First, high school curriculums divorce rhetoric from composition and only focus on the latter which leads to value being assigned to the final draft (product). Second, students lack a necessary background in rhetoric to discuss analysis and argument, so instructors must fuse rhetoric and composition again and emphasize the writing process. Theoretically, if we improve the process our students use to produce the product, then the product is improved as a result.

Brenner's comment fuels the unnecessary negative stigma associated with comics and graphic novels by alluding to these texts as if they are gateway drugs, which may be an apt metaphor, if we substitute books for drugs. Comic books and graphic novels are capable of leading young readers to read increasingly difficult texts if we are willing to make connections between literature and comics or graphic novels, but I am thinking the answer lies in encouraging people to read. I know one reason I became an English major to begin with is because I knew if I did not, then I may never read texts most people encounter, but I also love reading. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)

Marvel Partners with Dabel Brothers Productions to Adapt Best Selling Novels into Comics (Comic Book Resources)

The first new project to be released under the agreement features New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton. Based on Hamilton’s most famous creation, Anita Blake, Marvel and The Dabel Brothers will release a thrilling new comic book series called Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter in Guilty Pleasures in October 2006.

[...]

Additionally, in the coming months Marvel and The Dabel Brothers will be bringing to comic book form George R. R. Martin's Hedge Knight series, Orson Scott Card's Red Prophet, and Raymond E. Feist's Magician: Apprentice (part one of the Riftwar saga). -CBR News Team

Posted by kuechebj at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2006

Comic Books for Girls (Associated Content)

It's no wonder girls don't read comics books. The comic book store is teeming with unwashed, testosterone drenched males, who generally all turn their head at the first sign of a female in the store. Even if the girl is willing to brave the perils of the comic shop, they're treated to a large selection of huge boobed and often hostile female superheros. -Rudy Ascott

[Ascott explains how certain comics women like reading are available for purchase online or at bookstores such as Borders or Barnes and Noble, suggesting female readership of comics and graphic novels is an underground concept, which I am willing to agree on. However, Ascott's stereotypical claim about males and comic shops forces me to question whether or not a similar argument may be proposed about why comics make men less attractive to the opposite sex. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

Comic books for Christians (Charlotte Observer)

Some Christians question whether comics are appropriate for religious content. Some apparently shy away from the books because they think "graphic novel" means adult material. Some mainstream stores are reluctant to carry books appealing to what they view as a small niche. -Tonya Caldwell

[Why do people automatically assume that "graphic" means "adult"? I remember teaching literature students taking a course on The Novel that graphic novels differ from comic books in two significant ways. First is length since comic books are mostly 22 pages in length with a comfortable maximum number of panels being nine (graphic novels are at least 100 pages following a similar convention). Second is the audience because graphic novels are not targeting younger readers as a monthly comic book supposedly does. Instead, graphic novels target more mature readers and may not relate with its monthly title companion, which I taught separates graphic novels from trade paperbacks. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2006

College students assigned comic books, best-sellers (News-Record)

Salisbury also uses "Birth of a Nation," a comic-book novel by Aaron McGruder, creator of the popular cartoon strip "Boondocks." And she's not the only professor outside the art department assigning comics. An English 105 class this semester was required to read "Watchmen" -- a dystopian comic about superheroes who are outlawed by presidential order and struggle with existential dilemmas.

[Joel Pace, one of my undergraduate mentors, taught Neil Gaiman's Sandman series for a long time in his Introduction to Literature course. Now he is switching to Blackpool. David Myers assigns Maus and Sally Robinson assigns Watchmen in their curriculums here at Texas A&M University. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2006

Making Comics (Scott McCloud)

In Making Comics, I’ll do my best to cover the storytelling secrets I don’t see any other books talking about, including:


Whether you want to draw graphic novels, superheroes, neo-manga, comic strips or webcomics, you’re going to be putting one picture after another to tell a story. This is the book where I'll do my best to show you how.

[Coming September 2006. I am looking forward to it now that I resolved to use McCloud and Eisner together. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2006

Finding Inspiration Through Comic Books (CBS 3 Philadelphia)

“His uncle suggested that he start reading comic books and with that. his uncle Neal introduced him to the X-Men,” described Axel.

It started way back when he loved dressing like the very characters he was reading about, just "kickin’ around" the idea scored a major interest.

“This is the first X-Men issue that I ever received from my uncle, the one that started this sick obsession of mine,” said Nash Axel.

[...]

“It’s easier for me to read now. I can honestly say I’m the only person in my class reading Hamlet. When everyone else is using Spark Notes, I’ll actually read it cause I enjoy it,” he said. “I can’t wait to go to college to get a degree in accounting.”

[A literacy success story using comic books. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2006

Mobile Comic Books For Your Phone (PR Web)

Launching early April, GoComics Books will include three new titles joining the already impressive GoComics line. Slated for release in the early Spring of 2006 is an eclectic blend of features that appeal to dedicated comic book readers and new fans alike. Titles include the new “cosmic” superhero comic GØDLAND, the geek and gamer strip PvP, and the too hip, too weird, Too Much Coffee Man. Bundled into one monthly subscription package, all stories are published in an anthology format with new pages for each title added every day.

GoComics Books presents comics in a panel-by-panel format for quick viewing and a simple interface that offers a great user experience. GoComics has optimized the original comics for the mobile screen, subtly adjusting and refining layouts and improving legibility and readability. This process has paid off, giving an essential vibrancy to this new comics format.

[I notice that our culture is favoring increasingly smaller technology, such as the iPod Nano or Motorola's new Slvr phone, but why? Is it a reflection of our obsession to overcome an obesity epidemic or do we like straining our vision seeing details in our shows that a normal television easily reveals? I said it before and I will say it again: If I don't want to watch Smallville on a 3" screen, then what makes you think I will read it on a 1" screen? BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:07 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2006

Discourse Chronicle Word Cloud (Snap Shirts)

blogwordcloud.jpg

[From Girl Meets World. Another ridiculously fun web toy. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2006

Publishers Find Growth in Comics (Comix Scholars List | NY Times)

For the big publishing companies that provide distribution services — companies like Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, the Time Warner Book Group and Holtzbrinck — Tokyopop was not just another potential customer, however. Graphic novels generally, and manga specifically, are among the few rapidly growing areas of the publishing business, so securing the right to distribute Tokyopop's books was a hotly contested prize.

The prize went to none of those giants, however, but rather to the Perseus Books Group, a medium-size publisher whose imprints include Basic Books, PublicAffairs and Da Capo Press. That is notable because Perseus entered the distribution field just last year through the purchase of one of the largest independents, Client Distribution Services.

[John R. Ronan offered this story on the Comic Scholars' Discussion List. I am familiar with manga's rise to popularity, although I occasionally watch its anime counterpart, bowing down to superior animation and overall character development compared to current American offerings. Alongside those manga titles in bookstores are trade paperbacks and hardcover editions of comic book story arcs from Marvel and DC. The Big Two are catching on to getting comics back into the mainstream and publishing fewer "collector's edition" issues, which I think is the right direction as Bradford Wright claims in Comic Book Nation that comic shops may have saved the industry in the 1990s, but now they are a bane to progress. I am optimistic that comic books will always be around, but someday, my work needs to cross the Pacific. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)

February 02, 2006

New Exam Aims to Measure Tech 'Literacy' (Yahoo! News)

The ICT Literacy Assessment touches on traditional skills, such as analytical reading and math, but with a technological twist. Test-takers, for instance, may be asked to query a database, compose an e-mail based on their research, or seek information on the Internet and decide how reliable it is.

[...]

The new "core" version that will be sold to high schools can be taken in a school computer lab over about 75 minutes and consists of 14 short tasks, lasting three to five minutes each, and one longer task of about 15 minutes. Students may be asked, for example, to determine what variables should go where in assembling a graph, and then use a simple program to create it. They could also be asked to research a topic on the Web and evaluate the authoritativeness of what they find.

[One of my colleagues in the English department is interested in how students use technology in and out of a classroom. I am impressed that one task on this assessment might be "to determine what variables should go where in assembling a graph," but I wonder how secondary education might pull that off, since rhetoric (even visual rhetoric) is not taught in schools. I know I had to wait until my third year of college work to even begin learning about rhetoric. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2006

Randomized Garfield (Jerz's Literacy Weblog | Memepool)

[From Dennis G. Jerz's blog. Here is a random generator supplying three different Garfield panels taken from various strips. Users may lock any panel and continue randomizing the others or lock all three. I question on Dennis's comments to this post whether or not this may be a step toward hypercomics. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:28 PM | Comments (8)

Mad About Manga (Detroit News)

You may not have noticed, but we're in the midst of a significant new cultural invasion. Comic books -- that great mainstay of American childhood -- have been in steep and steady decline for years, despite some recent gains. By contrast, manga in the United States has shot up like a hot biotech stock, jumping from $10 million in sales six years ago to $300 million today.

[Comic scholars are already aware of a declining readership of comics among younger audiences and there is no defnitive reason about why yet. Tessie Chin, 22, said titles like Superman "are all kind of the same" and manga readers accuse American comics as being too focused on the superhero genre.

Obviously comic books are going to be focused on superheroes. According to Bradford Wright's Comic Book Nation, DC proposed the first comic book (Action Comics) as a medium for featuring Superman, whose success helped launch other familiar titles such as Batman and Spider-Man at Marvel Comics.

As for Superman remaining unchanged, I would disagree and use Chin's example as proof that younger comic book readers are failing to identify with these characters as I did when I started reading comics, which continues to this day. Readers are no longer looking at Superman as a role-model for behaving as better human beings because they only see his superpowers in action and realize that those are impossible in reality. True, I will never be able to fly, use vision powers, be invulnerable, or move faster than a speeding bullet. However, those are not what I take away from this character.

Here are a few things I do take away: I read about Superman devoting himself to helping other people using all of his abilities (fictional or not), so I choose to become a college professor; I listen to Superman in the movies defend mass transit, so I am unafraid to fly or ride trolleys and buses, despite September 11; I also watch Superman in the movies make promises and keep them, no matter what the consequence may be, so I learn how important it is to always be honest. These learnable qualities are still being taught using characters like Superman, but people are listening less. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 12:46 PM | Comments (4)

December 18, 2005

Can You Read This? (Wombat's World)

What the study highlights is not this problem, one educators know well, but the overall impact of the failure of education in this country. The study reports that only 13% of the population achieves the level designated "Proficient."

[...]

Only 13% of the population? What percentage of the population graduates from some college? Surely more than 13%! Yet so many are apparently incapable of the skills required to pass my Freshman Composition course. Clearly, we are falling down on the job. It's easy to see why: education has no value, but it has prestige.

[Here is an interesting post from Wombat's World. "Wombat" is a professor and fellow Comic Scholar teaching in Houston. My reaction: Yikes! BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)

December 09, 2005

Are You My Reader? (Discourse Chronicle)

[Are you my reader? I wonder about this whenever I am doing one of my blog sessions. One thing that fascinates me about hypertext, new media, and blogging is how much potential there is to build an interactive community through its users via computers. However, in order for that to happen, there needs to be voices other than my own here. I know that graduate school semesters are unquestionably brutal and time is a valuable resource, but I would hope that my blog provides a break from monotony. Other reasons for this blog also exist, but that sense of community is important to me, especially when it concerns itself with how we read texts.

I ask myself the following questions during every blog session:

Now that we are going into Christmas break, I plan on redesigning this site using Dreamweaver and hopefully help from Dennis G. Jerz, one of my mentors from undergraduate, who runs Jerz's Literacy Weblog at Seton Hill University. I also plan on taking a break from posting new entries to really give people a chance to dialogue with me through comments on any posting and answer my burning question, "Are you my reader?" BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 02:55 PM | Comments (9)

December 07, 2005

Interview: Stan Lee (IGN)

IGN: Obviously the kernel of the Fantastic Four is that they are a family. How instrumental were you in making sure that this film reflected a more family-friendly interpretation of the characters than other adaptations?

Lee: Well, I don't think that had much to do with me. That was just the way Tim Story and the other people saw it. When I did Spider-Man and the X-Men and the Hulk and Daredevil and the Fantastic Four and all of them, I never thought to myself, "I think this is a little older than that one" or "I think this one is a little younger." I never even thought of age when I was writing the stories; I was trying to write stories that interested me, stories I thought I would like to read about characters I felt would interest me. I always figure I'm not unique, and something that would please me hopefully would please a lot of other people that have the same tastes that I do. So if this one skewed a little bit younger, it wasn't my intention when I wrote the books, and it may just be because of the way it was written or directed or something. It may not be a bad thing if it seemed to be for a younger audience - I don't know.

[Ron Marz said something similar two years ago when he performed guest-speaking duties at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's English Festival. I remember him saying that whenever a comic book series is released specifically targeting kids now, they fail, for some reason. Meanwhile, mainstream titles like Superman, Green Lantern, or Spider-Man are telling stories that those writers want to see, which is not too different from Lee's explanation above. It seems like Marvel's Ultimate line and DC's All-Star titles are winning younger audiences, but there one key is reimagination with a broad audience in mind. Maybe nothing is wrong with Comics as an industry at all, it just needed a tune-up. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2005

Graphic novels catch eyes and minds of students (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Much of the criticism, librarians say, comes from parents who dislike the books' reliance on pictures. And some schools simply don't use the discretionary part of their budget to buy graphic novels. At West Bend West High School, librarian Patti Geidel said she prefers purchasing books with more text than the graphic novels.

[Hey, hey! (claps twice) Ho, ho! (stamps twice) Naysaying has got to go! Hey, hey! (claps twice) Ho, ho! (stamps twice) Naysaying has got to go! Eric Blodgett (a colleague in the English department) also showed me this link. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2005

Harry Potter and the Wiki Witch (JeFF Stumpo and Carl Thorpe)

[Stumpo:] We have put up a website which invites visitors to try to write the 7th book in the Harry Potter series before J.K. Rowling can. Each visitor can be reader, writer, and editor, contributing to and changing this ever-evolving project. With any luck, there will be multiple versions of the "book" by time the experiment ends (and those interested on a scholarly level will be able to view the changes that take place over time, as these will be automatically saved and archived on the site).

[We all know how much disdain I possess toward Harry Potter, however, this project sounds cool because of its creative writing properties along with textual editing concerns it may raise. JeFF Stumpo is a colleague from the English department who hosts JavaShock, a slam poetry showcase, twice per semester at Revolutions Cafe in Bryan, TX. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2005

Move over Harold Pinter: graphic novelists are being welcomed as artistic heavyweights (Guardian Unlimited)

So it is truly a sign of the times that the front cover of the annual RSL magazine for 2006 will be devoted to two graphic novelists. Posy Simmonds and Raymond Briggs were both made fellows of the society this year, the first in their genre to receive the honour. They are designing a cover for the journal together, which will trumpet the arrival of graphic novels as a respected literary form.

[The article references the Royal Society of Literature, whose members include Tom Stoppard, Seamus Heaney, Harold Pinter, and Doris Lessing. Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, a colleague of mine in Discourse Studies claims that I.A. Richards (who wrote The Philosophy of Rhetoric and other important texts for rhetoricians) makes a case in a different book for comics becoming part of the literary canon. I have yet to see that book. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

Comic books are aiming for super readers with new plots (Star Tribune)

Readers now, DiDio said, "are more savvy, and they're looking for more complexity and more depth for them to be following the stories on a monthly basis." A crucial phase of the campaign started recently with the release of "Infinite Crisis," the first of a seven-part monthly series that will bring together all the story threads -- and the superheroes -- that have been evolving in separate series over the past three years.

[The killing of Maxwell Lord, a villain who manipulated Superman under his control in Wonder Woman 219 is an example of how comic books are moving toward becoming monthly graphic novels. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2005

Mandela launches comic books on his life (Canada)

Friday, October 28, 2005 JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Former president Nelson Mandela launched the first edition Friday of a series of comic books about his life aimed at encouraging young South Africans to read.

[...]

By telling Mandela's story with colourful pictures, the foundation hopes to overcome the poverty, illiteracy and isolation that persist more than a decade after apartheid's end. A million copies will be distributed free at schools and in newspapers.

[Thurston showed me this story in a different publication. Thanks! BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 04:43 PM | Comments (2)

November 07, 2005

U.S. papers adding Japanese-style comics (Journal Gazette)

The reason? Newspaper editors want to attract more young readers. A study released earlier this year by the Carnegie Corporation put the age of newspaper readers at 53 and climbing - hardly a recipe for circulation growth.

[One problem facing a modern comic book industry is how to attract younger readers, since its target audience continues being people born in the 1980s, another topic being discussed on the Comic Scholars' Discussion List. BK]

Posted by kuechebj at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)