To some, this will be an old argument that has been belabored, fought, and won many times over. For others, this will be a new and unfamiliar tale – graphic novels are starting to become considered a mainstay of contemporary literature. For the uninitiated and unfamiliar, a graphic novel is a full-length story, drawn and texted – typically in panels – and typically expressing a single continuous self-contained story. In other words; it’s a non-serial comic book. A comic book; but also a novel. Some of them are hundreds of pages long, or thousands in the case of some of Osamu Tezuka’s stories, or are so massive they’re broken into parts to make a series (not unlike Dune or Lord of the Rings). These are not dime-rack drugstore comics – these are not tales of underwear perverts who cannot be recognized because of a lack of glasses or the addition of a bit of makeup – the topics which these cover are widely varied in content, meaning, style, and narrative. Some of them are superbly written, some of them are superbly drawn. The graphic novel is a genre which crosses boundaries, and any decent critique would have to be a critique of both halves of the tale; in terms of literature, we must consider the quality of narrative, characterization, theme, engaged storytelling, continuity, use of language, and so on. But also, in terms of art, we should consider composition, layout, balance, colour and/or shading, and so forth. But of course, every image also tells a story, and even some single-panel images can tell a narrative, so a graphic novel has the added issue of being analyzed in terms of integration – in other words, does the narrative, continuity, emotion, and storytelling of the images work with or against the narrative of the text? And how well and in what way does any given panel visually or narratively interact with the preceding and following panel? A well-crafted graphic novel requires talent in both literary and visual arts, which is essentially why truly masterful graphic novels are so exceptional, and also so much more powerful.
A typical, and arguably the most famous, instance of a graphic novel would be Maus:A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman. Written over a period of 20 years, this novel has a much more classically comic-like look and feel about it. Even so, it integrates the text rather well, and on occasion describes things through well-written prose rather than depicting the situations through imagery – partly because of the author’s own admitted horror of the events that occurred, and partly because Maus was not meant to shock but to humanize. This is largely due to the content and theme of Maus, as the novel is the true story of the author’s father’s memoires as an Auschwitz survivor. Each image told a story, and all dialogue was rich in imagery, and both together charged the story to tell a tale of desperation, hope, fear, and confusion. I admit that I largely cringe at WWII stories; typically, the Germans are depicted as de-horned demons, the Americans are heroic liberators, the French are spineless, the Jews are fragile victims and the Allies aren’t even there at all. Any tale that depicts the Germans as human, the Americans as being disrespectful to foreign culture (and late), the French as rebellious, the Jews as resourceful, and the Allies as anything at all so long as they’re actually mentioned is a huge step up – and Maus does all of these. The presence of each group is felt more visually than anything else, as each nation was represented by a different animal; the Jews were mice, the Polish were pigs, the Germans were cats, the British were fish, and so on. From the cruelty of the Kapos, to the reticent cooperation (and underlying Jewish sympathy) of the Polish, to the occasional warm-heartedness of certain exceptional German soldiers, all characters involved were equally human, equally frightened, and equally struggling – something which came out more in the artwork than in the narration, but which was unmissable. In addition, the scratched-out look of the artwork gave the work a coarse, abrasive, slightly unfinished feel, which added to the general theme of improvisation and decay that lends itself well to survivors’ tales. It’s no wonder Maus earned acclaim and recognition, landing Spiegelman a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992.
A slightly more classically comic-looking graphic novel is the Bone series, by Jeff Smith. In fact, each chapter is a single comic (of the dime rack variety), though as with many Japanese Manga series, when collected into a single, large graphic novel, the continuity is seamless. In terms of the look, Bone is by far one of the cleanest comics that I have seen in a long time. One of the more striking aspects of the look is that of movement; without using a single motion line, every frame has a feel of movement and direction. The colours are rich without being garish (in the coloured versions), the environments are rich and detailed, and there’s a wide mix of “looks” ranging from small, rounded characters to ghastly, finely detailed ones. This style is reminiscent of certain Golden Age comics, such as Walt Kelly’s Pogo, or the classic Disney series such as Uncle Scrooge. The story is a light-hearted fantasy epic which does not rush itself, building up character and plot at an even pace. Admittedly, at the time of writing this I’ve only been able to read the first compilation (the first of nine), so I can’t yet comment on where it goes or how it develops, though the accolades that Bone has received in terms of awards and glowing reviews – as well as my own experience so far – entices me both to keep reading and to encourage others to do so as well.
A more mainstream, more well-known graphic novel – popularized by a film adaptation – would be Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. This tale falls under the class of “real-life adventure”. That is to say no super powers, no monsters, no fantasy or science fiction; this is the very antithesis of what most people unfamiliar with the format would imagine. It’s a coming-of-age story of a pessimistic teenage girl and her best friend. The conversations are trite and often cruel, and the characters are simultaneously shallow and deep. In other words; Clowes perfectly captured the essence of the angsty urban teen story in graphic novel format, and as such, the artwork is very dialogue driven with very little narrative text. Often praised for writing dialogue as many teens actually speak, and holding attitudes that they would actually have, the entire story revolves around the uncertain, ambiguous feeling that many youths have on the brink of adulthood – a general theme which is present to some degree in most of his work. The art style belongs to the American underground comic tradition, like those of Mad or of Robert Crumb, and often shows either clean and urban, or else squalid and cluttered environments, all filled with either quite plain or quite ugly characters, most of whom appear quite eccentric. Daniel Clowes – and especially Ghost World – is attributed by many fans and scholars as being one of the earlier publications (1993) to launch the graphic novel format into the public domain and bring the graphic novels out of comic stores and into bookstores.
Finally, I leave you with one final stand-alone graphic novel which is exceptional in that it has no dialogue; Nufonia Must Fall by Eric San (aka. Kid Koala). With the exception of subway stations and labels, this story is almost fully text-free, preferring graphic representations whenever possible, though the story does not at all suffer from a lack of dialogue or narrative. Even though Eric San is primarily known as a musician (esp. the first man to use a turntable as a musical instrument instead of a sample machine), his ability to graphically spin a yarn comes off masterfully and full of emtion. This comedic tragic romance is very endearing; it’s essentially a love story between a robot and the inventor that made him obsolete, but more importantly, it is subtly underpinned with a tale of urban isolation, as our hero starts off walled off wilthin his own shell, interacting with others only when fully necessary, and ending the story by drinking in every single moment for what it’s worth until his memory banks are filled up with a click. It’s also interesting in that instead of narrative or dialogue, the story comes with a soundtrack; 10 original tracks which aim to set the mood for given moments in the story, culminating with “Robot Love Song v2.0″. Although the story is essentially text-free, I would still argue that Nufonia Must Fall is a legitimate novel and not necessarily something exclusive to the domain of art; even without text, the narrative is clear, the characterization is nuanced, and the story is self-evident. I’ve passed it around to friends before (all 352 pages can be read in under 20 minutes, assuming you don’t analyze detail too much), and even despite differences in culture and native language, everyone intuitively understood everything and agreed on all the basics as if it were written in their own language. The only thing we couldn’t all agree upon was the interpretation.
Graphic novels for adults often fall victim to the same assumptions and misgivings directed towards cartoons for adults; mostly being that these genres are intended for children. Never mind the irony that the earliest serialized comics were from political cartoonists in newspapers, or that some of the earliest cartoons were geared towards adults and restricted against children (Betty Boop, for example), regardless of their origins the graphic novel has for at least a decade now been recognized as belonging under the heading of “literature”. If you disagree, then by all means, there are plenty of hints and ideas in this review for you to track down and access something and check it out for yourself, and if you need a hint of somewhere you can go to pick them up; most local libraries now have a section set aside for graphic novels.
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