Last week, my final thoughts were about community. If you'd asked me a year ago, I would have said, "Absolutely, reading is a solitary activity. Just me and my book. And maybe a glass of wine." Today, as I'm thinking about reading, I'm realizing that it's not the "me" activity one would imagine.

When I was in the third grade, my teacher would read us a chapter from a book every day. My favorite was Island of the Blue Dolphins. The entire story played out miles from my home—I could see the island from the highway. My mom, the librarian, read to the family during dinner. My favorites from her were the King Arthur stories. Man, I have a weak spot for knights in shining armor.

For a few years, my husband and I had this thing where we'd play the audio version of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash while on road trips (we don't take many and it's a long book). We'd both read this one separately, of course—how can you be an early Internet geek without a little Stephenson on your reading resume?—but it was just as much fun to hear it together. We'd listen, we'd pause, we'd discuss, we'd remember.

Back when it was first released, we were also playing online with friends in San Francisco. Nobody did anything but play in those days. This was when a graphic, web-browsery thing called NetCruiser was all the rage. Back when it was the height of cool to play chess via email. Back when you could see what was new on the Internet—the entire Internet—and still have time to experiment with the early version of chat.

And we talked about books with those friends. Talked about Snow Crash. Wow, we thought, imagine a virtual world. If you've been to Second Life, you're thinking, "Maybe next virtual world." But no matter, it's a book that came to life. Imagine that...someone imagined a reality, and then someone made that imagination real.

Fast forward to 2008. I've been a member of my book club for about ten years. I'm one of the newer members, though not the newest. I joined after they'd done the Jane Austens and some Russians (saving, however, The Brothers Karamazov for me). That was when we had the "old" list. We've integrated a new list because there were titles on the old list that nobody wanted to read, though a few die-hards insist we have to give it a shot. So once a month, we get together to talk about one book, though we talk about a lot more (there's a reason it's also known as "wine club").

Think about it. You read, however you read. I know people who, for various reasons, are audiobook-only readers. I know people who are blind readers. I know people who read slowly, excrutiatingly slow for someone like me. I know people who rival me in speed (I can't help it, even when I want to linger...). The one thing we all have in common is that reading is just part of the experience.

The best often comes when we talk about the story, the words, the vision, the ideas. Every person comes away from the book with something different. No two people have the same experience when they read a book. It's all about putting impressions together. Books, and I'm talking fiction in particular, are about community. We read, but that's only a piece of the experience. Our relationship with a book doesn't end when we read the final sentence. For some of us, our relationship with certain books never ends at all. And we want to share our thoughts about that book with everyone we meet.

A lot of people worry about the future of the novel. I don't. I do worry about the business of publishing because the industry depends on ad hoc groups to build community and sustain community and maintain the passion necessary to keep the world excited about book—and I'm going to tell you, the kind of community that this industry needs requires more resources (yeah, that's code for money) than the current business model permits.

We live in this crazy new world that throws old rules over for new rules without a passing thought. Old rules in the book biz were top down, you told me what I wanted to read. Now I'm telling you what I want to read—I want dialogue with authors, booksellers (really, I wish  more booksellers were working together to, I don't know, create consortiums of passion for books), publishers, everybody.

Community only works if everyone contributes. For this first decade and a half of what is our online revolution, readers, especially, have brought the passion and the innovation while the publishers have remained on the sidelines. But if I'm building my half of the bridge and you're waiting for marketing to devise a project plan, then I have other worlds to explore. If we don't want to talk about the publishing industry in the past tense, then the publishing industry needs to change how it relates to books and readers.

I am not 100% sure of how one goes about building a perfect reading community online (and offline, because it ain't about one medium), but I do know that leaving it up to the readers and authors isn't enough. We need serious industry investment into building serious community. Serious communities require sustained involvement, or if not sustained, then a loom big enough to handle the warps and wefts of individual involvement.

There are communities out there—Shelfari, LibraryThing, Goodreads, among others—and it's a joy to see how these groups are growing and changing. How word spreads from one reader to the next about tools and resources and fun. Like so much of what is happening online when it comes to books, these communities thrive despite the publishing industry. Imagine the possibilities if the industry side of the business threw as much passion into these communities as readers do.

When it comes to building a community of book people, so much of the burden is placed on those who read books (also known as consumers). Maybe once the professionals were able to remain up on the hill, above the community, living off the labor of those on the street. If that time ever existed, it's over now. If the publishing industry doesn't invest in the reading community in a serious, meaningful, sincere manner now, then maybe, like newspapers, the publishing industry as we know it will cease to exist.

Like I said, I'm not worried about the future of the novel. Story will survive. It will thrive. But the industry, the thing we know as publishing? It has to join the community or be cast off into the wilderness.

Or maybe I should just say this: I like to talk about books. Don't you, too?

Posted by: Kassia Krozser

While I am a proud elitist, I am not a literary snob. As I said last time, it's story that moves me, and if I let myself be limited by books I "should" read or authors who pass some sort of weird smell test, then I'm missing out on parts of the entire reading experience. I don't want to do that, and it perplexes me when other people do.

Don't they know that it's a great big world out there? There is no right way to read. It's so important to remember that.

For years now, I've hated on the Los Angeles Times Book Review (and to a certain degree the New York Times) because I see that my hometown paper simply refuses to acknowledge the diversity that is Los Angeles. The LATBR, largely a reflection of the editor, became a pastiche of California history, Hollywood history, obscure biography, and a smattering of mostly literary fiction.

You could argue that these topics are all worthy of reading and reviewing, but I would argue that these topics lead to the state of the LATBR today: it simply isn't valued by a large enough segment of Los Angeles's reading population. Even before it became the flipside half of the opinion section—making it that much harder to find in morass of ads and special inserts—the LATBR was locals only, in the worst possible sense of the term.

While good writers graced the pages, the overall tone was, shall we say?, stultifying. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe it was the editorial tone, but there wasn't a sense that reading is fun, books are fun, and we shouldn't have to waste our lives slogging through words that simply don't move us emotionally. Most egregiously, the LATBR failed to understand that readers cross the literary plains with ease—there was no reaching across reading cultures, no real attempt to bring the science fiction reader into a different, but equally speculative type of fiction. No "hey, if you like this, you might like this, too."

Newspapers have absolutely no obligation to cover books, especially when books don't pay the bills. Of course, bills are paid in different ways, and if the book review were valuable to the people of Los Angeles, it would be much harder for the powers-that-be (powers that, I am convinced, have no business running a newspaper) to cut and trim and destroy the LATBR. I don't think it's too harsh to suggest that the editorial staff of the LATBR has a whole lot of culpability when it comes to the state of the book review.

My guess is they don't see it that way. During the past year or so, as more book review sections were cut and eliminated, I noted a lot of hand-wringing, but not a lot of proactive action. "We must save the book review!" they cried, but nobody offered solid, practical plans, a smart course of action. There was a sense of entitlement in some of the discussion, a sense that book reviews are "good for us" and must therefore exist in the print edition of a newspaper.

Like millions of people—more than a few of whom are American—I regularly read the book coverage at the Guardian while no longer bothering the sift through the wasted paper to find the LATBR (and, honestly, sometimes I'd just forget that it was upside-down and backwards from the opinion section). I get what I want from our friends across the pond: lively book coverage, diverse opinion, and passion for reading, writing, and publishing.

Book reviews are somewhat tricky, you see. Some people don't want to possess too much information, so they only read for general gist. Others prefer to read the review after they've read the book because that's where the review is most helpful: comparing and contrasting views and thoughts. And there are those who equate "review" with "analysis", looking for more than a review when they encounter discussion about a particular book.

I think the newspaper book review section killed itself, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe the model was tired and at the end of its natural life, especially in this age of community and cross-border interaction. Maybe the book review section had to die to give rise to something bigger, better, and, yes, more inclusive: a true literary community. A community that crosses boundaries and lines and social strata. A community that doesn't exist on a publishing timetable. A community that facilitates face-to-face community as much as it does online debate.

A community that loves books—from the moment fingers hit the keyboard (or ink hits the paper) to the moment the reader closes the last page (or turns off the Kindle).

Posted by: Kassia Krozser

For a few years now, I have bemoaned the dearth of publishing industry professionals at the annual South by Southwest interactive conference. It's not geared specifically toward publishers; though, in many ways, it's telling that online media, the motion picture business, gaming, and the music industry have come to dominate the festival. Why is publishing left off the roster?

Publishing people should attend the interactive festival for a few reasons. The first, of course, is that it's still cutting edge (though, as the size of the crowd increases, that's waning)-- what's being talked about in panels and at parties is what you're going to be chasing after in a year or two. The second that one this is made clear by SXSW: storytelling rules.

Gamers, particularly, get this. They understand that it's not enough to have guns and dragons and scantily clad women. The underpinning of great games is story. What gamers really get is that games are defined in many ways. Sometimes games are played individually, sometimes they're played by groups of people in the same building, sometimes they're played by groups of people within the same region, and sometimes they're played by groups of people separated by geography.

Games, like reading, make people happy*. Games, like reading, invite people to share in a common world with common rules. Games, like reading, offer an alternative to the humdrumness of day-to-day life. Games are fun. Reading is fun. It's no wonder that gamers focus on the importance of storytelling.

But today's games get that participants don't exist in one space at one time. There are options for everyone, be it the solitary soul or the gregarious joiner. Books are like that too -- reading, the act of processing text on the page into brain waves, is something we do alone; but we love to share the story, the experience, the words, the nuance.

To me, the future of publishing is tied to the future of storytelling. The future of storytelling requires the realization that we started out by campfires listening to tales and we have been telling stories in all shapes and forms ever since. Books, as we like to imagine them, are relatively new in our human history. Books, if I may commit heresy, are a means to an end: one way to tell a story.

I am not much of a gamer, just ask my mother. She and my sister play Scrabble like it's a blood sport; I play for the sheer joy of the game. They hate me. I am madly in love with story. When I look back at what has engaged me through the (many) decades, story, mostly in text format, is front and center. I am happy to meander through convoluted plotlines, as long as I can trust that it's all going to come together in the end...even if I disagree with how it happens.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this over the past year, and it still feels weird to write it loud: publishing can learn a lot from the gaming industry. Hmm, maybe not learn a lot, but remember a lot. Remember that it's the story, stupid. Remember that it's the reader who matter. Remember that we're not picking up books to make ourselves miserable.

Most of all, remember that reading is supposed to be fun.


Posted by: Kassia Krozser

I’m about to suggest something that could make my life a lot harder. It just as easily could make my entire profession a lot stronger.

It seems like everyone wants to create comics and graphic novels. Stephen King has presented the latest stories in his Dark Tower series as comics. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon has his own super-hero, The Escapist. Best-selling author Jodi Picoult has written DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, Jonathan Lethem has Marvel’s Omega the Unknown, science-fiction star Orson Scott Card has written Iron Man, and so on.

It’s not just novelists. Screenwriter-director Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has written comics based on his own creations as well as long-established Marvel super-heroes. So has Clerks writer-director-actor Kevin Smith. Musicians are involved, too, from KISS’ Gene Simmons to cutie-punker Avril Lavigne to burnout rocker Courtney Love. Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage created the comics series Voodoo Child with his son Weston. The book’s publisher is Virgin Comics, which has also produced comics from author Deepak Chopra, porn star Jenna Jameson, and filmmakers John Woo and Guy Ritchie.

Gol-durn Johnny-come-latelies, I’ve occasionally grumbled. For decades, comics bumped along, often without making much money and almost always without attracting much prestige. Now that graphic novels have started getting some respect, amateurs from other fields want in. Where were they when the business needed them? (I may start manufacturing T-shirts bearing the line “I was comics when comics weren’t cool.”) Like TV stars who get a contract to write picture books or movie actors who get music-company record deals, celebrities are crowding into the graphic-novel world. And I suspect that they might crowd out lesser-known talents like, well, me.

Nevertheless, I want more celebrities to join them.

As a reader, I want to see great graphic novels, which means reaching out to any people who have the talent to make them—even famous people. And as a guy who works in comics, I’m all for anything or anyone that’ll bring the business more attention and higher sales.

But a lot of people who could make great graphic novels haven’t yet grabbed the opportunity, and I want them to. Here are some people who deserve a chance much more than a porno actress or a movie star’s son.

• Comic strip cartoonists. This category would seem to be a natural, but few strip cartoonists do much work in graphic novels. Crafting a three-panel gag requires different skills from sustaining a 200-page narrative.

But some strip artists could do it brilliantly. In Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau weaves stories that run for weeks at a crack, and his characters develop depth and maturity. Calvin and Hobbes’ Bill Watterson has a superb visual talent (look at his Sunday strips) and great skill at making vivid characters. For Better or For Worse’s Lynn Johnston and Funky Winkerbean’s Tom Batiuk have produced long storylines of considerable emotional punch as well as humor.

• Comedians who tell stories. Like comic-strip artists, some comedians are simply great gag writers. But others go further. Bill Cosby tells tales -- from memories of his family to the adventures of Fat Albert and Old Weird Harold to the episodes of The Cosby Show’s Huxtable clan—that indicate a genius for character and story structure. Ellen DeGeneres’ discursive anecdotes seem to run off in a dozen directions, but she always pulls them together into something hilarious. These storytellers could create great graphic novels, and they wouldn’t even have to draw. The field has a long tradition of fumetti, also known as photo-comics. Besides, a lot of artists would love to work with Cosby or DeGeneres.

• Artists who went astray. A lot of creative people studied art but became rich and famous elsewhere. Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood went to Ealing Art College and has kept up his skills. I’d love to see him do a comics memoir of his days in the Stones. Filmmaker David Lynch, famous for movies like Blue Velvet and the TV series Twin Peaks, trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and has created both animated and print cartoons. Horror novelist Clive Barker is a skilled painter of visions every bit as weird as the ones in prose volumes like his Books of Blood. Tim Burton, who started as an animator before going on to direct Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and other movies, has written and drawn books such as The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.

There are so many more. Suspense novelist Walter Mosley knows comics well; he’s even published a lavish, panel-by-panel tribute to the first issue of Fantastic Four. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, could produce terrific graphic novels. Editorial cartoonists like Pulitzer Prize winners Don Wright and Dick Locher could deploy their remarkable skill at staging scenes, capturing characters, and making points into superb narratives.

As long as I’m dreaming, I’d like each celebrity guest to do all the work of making comics. No ghostwriters, as-told-tos, or other crutches that let a celebrity come up with a few ideas and turn the bulk of the work over to professional writers. In my ideal world, celebrity creators of graphic novels would have to do what the rest of us do: face the blank sheet of paper and muck through every detail of structuring a plot, building a world, and devising each characters’ words, actions, and emotions.

I can’t forget the way screenwriter Sam Hamm reacted after he first tried writing comics. “Comic books are damned hard to [create],” he admitted in the introduction to his graphic novel Blind Justice. “I did my harrowing stint and came away with enhanced admiration for the talented guys who turn this stuff out on a regular basis.” Still, he added, “It’s an experience I wouldn’t have traded.”
 
I don’t know about you, but I hope that Bill Cosby or Ron Wood would feel the same way.

Posted by: David Seidman

You know that graphic novels are getting more popular all the time. You’ve read GNs, but to do your job right you need to know more about them. Where to turn?

Let me take you by the hand. It’ll be easy.

Publishers Weekly issues a free e-mail newsletter called PW Comics Week, full of news, previews of upcoming graphic novels, links to reviews, and other useful stuff. You can sign up for it here.

The Comic Book Industry Alliance (CBIA) is a group of more than 500 comics creators, retailers, and other experts. If you’ve got questions about graphic novels, if you’re looking for a comics creator to do a presentation, or if you need anything else related to comics, the people on the CBIA’s very active message board can help.

The CBIA’s reach is worldwide. For information specific to your own area, your local comics retailers can be immensely useful. To find a retailer near you, call the Comic Shop Locator Service (CSLS) at 888-COMIC BOOK (888-266-4226) or visit the CSLS web page. You can also check out the master list of comic book stores.

Comic-Con International: San Diego, held at the end of July, is a must for anyone passionate about comics and graphic novels – or anyone who just likes spectacle. The four-day monster, the biggest comics convention in North America, gathers the entire comics community: more than 100,000 writers, artists, publishers, retailers, fans, and more. The show even has special programming for librarians. The 2007 con, for instance, included panel discussions such as “Graphic Novels in Libraries” and “The Secret Origin of Good Readers” (hint: the origin has something to do with comics) alongside “DC Comics’ Big Guns” and “Pro/Fan Trivia Match.” If you can’t make it to San Diego and you want to find a convention in your community, you’ll find links at Comic Book Conventions, Comicon.com, and Hoboes’ Comic Book Conventions.

You probably know that the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is a great source of guidance regarding graphic novels. The organization issues an annual list of Great Graphic Novels and sponsors “Get Graphic @ Your Library” workshops to help librarians work with GNs.

Once you get deeper into the world of comics and graphic novels, I think you’ll like it. We GN folk are a fun and friendly bunch, if a little on the geeky side.

See you soon, I hope.

Posted by: David Seidman

I hate to admit it, but graphic novels can be a problem.

The librarians of Marshall, Missouri, know the problem too well. “Does this community want our public library to continue to use tax dollars to purchase pornography?” Marshall resident Louise Mills asked the city council in October of 2006. She was referring to two award-winning graphic novels: Blankets, Craig Thompson’s tale of first love and sexual awakening, and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel’s memories of (among other things) her father’s homosexuality and her own. The library pulled the books from its shelves and didn’t return them until March of 2007. The controversy led the library’s board of directors to create a new set of standards for selecting books.

More scary was the Gordon Lee arrest. Lee’s a comics retailer in Rome, Georgia. For Halloween 2004, Lee didn’t give out candy; he gave out comic books. Unfortunately, he accidentally gave one boy a copy of Alternative Comics #2. The issue included a story featuring Pablo Picasso in the nude. Lee tried to apologize, but the cops charged him with distributing obscene material to a minor. The resulting controversy and trials slogged on until April 2008, when Judge Larry Salmon agreed to dismiss the case.

How can you avoid problems like these, especially if you’re not a deep-dyed expert in all things comics?

Librarians experienced in these things suggest treating graphic novels like any other books. “One of the biggest ways that librarians can reduce the problems is to have graphic novels in the appropriate areas, by age,” says Nick Smith of southern California’s Pasadena Public Library. Los Angeles County Librarian Margaret Donnellan Todd explains, “The graphic novels in the children's collection are evaluated for the collection using our criteria for our children's materials. Young adult graphic novels are catalogued and shelved in the sections identified as Teen or Young Teen. These books are evaluated to meet our criteria for those age groups. Adult graphic novels are catalogued in our adult collection and meet our collection criteria for the adult collection.”

“You don't have to have read every book that comes into your collection,” Nick Smith adds, “but you should have general guidelines on why you purchase things, and what sources you use to learn about them.” ForeWord reviews graphic novels, for instance, and so does Library Journal. Diamond Comics Distributors, which dominates the delivery of comics to shops, has a number of resources for librarians. Bill Schanes, Diamond’s vice president of purchasing, recommends the Bookshelf section of Diamond’s website. In particular, check out Bookshelf’s Graphic Novels for Your Library page.

Some of the best sources of information are your local comics retailers. A few, like Nancy McCann of southern California’s Comics Unlimited, have even been librarians themselves. You can find the nearest retailers by calling the Comic Shop Locator Service (CSLS) at 888-COMIC BOOK (888-266-4226), visiting the CSLS web page, or using the master list of comic book stores.
 
If you can’t find a local shop that suits you, worry not. The Comic Book Industry Alliance, a group of retailers and other comics professionals, has a number of members willing to advise librarians nearby or far away. Among them:

• Rick Lowell of Maine’s Casablanca Comics: comics@casablancacomics.com or 207-780-1676.
• Gail Burt of southern California’s Metropolis Comics: metrohero@gmail.com or 562-263-0277.
• Mick Galuski of Toy Soldier Games and Comics in Amesbury, Massachusetts: galuski@gmail.com or 978-388-2512.

In addition, says Gary Dills of Virginia’s Phoenix Comics, “We are currently working with our local librarians to build a resource for reviews and content warnings for teachers and librarians. This site will feature reviews by librarians, teachers, and consumers with ways that the material has been used in the classroom and how often they are checked out of the library.”

To play it as safe as possible, some librarians buy their graphic novels directly from the stores. Phil Boyle of Florida’s Coliseum of Comics retail chain says, “We offered libraries the option to return any book before they put it on the floor if they felt it was not something they were comfortable with. We had many take us up on the offer and we exchanged the books for items that were appropriate.”

So relax. You don’t have to face an angry city council meeting or wake up to find a warrant for your arrest.
 
And a good thing, too. In the words of Joan Kramer, coordinating field librarian for the Los Angeles Unified School District, “All I can tell you is, graphic novels are here to stay.”

Posted by: David Seidman

Ever been to Everyone Who’s Anyone? It’s a website that’s useful but very, let’s say, quirky. The gent who runs it is trying to get journalists and others to pay attention to his writing, which he calls “the greatest work of art of the 21st Century.” To those who choose not to read his work, he says, “You'd rather wallow in the ignorance and petty self-aggrandizement your owners keep you wallowing in for their own mean, miserable, money grubbing reasons.”

So he’s quirky, but his website lists thousands of journalists and others, complete with phone numbers, postal addresses, e-mail addresses, and so on. It needs updating, but it’s still one of the greatest sources of contact information that I’ve ever seen.

If you try to get press attention for events and organizations, you know that it can be an uphill climb. Sites like Everyone Who’s Anyone can help. Author John Kremer’s amazingly comprehensive Book Marketing is another gem, with one page listing hundreds of journalists who write about books and another that includes some editors of newspaper book sections.

Newspapers, though, are in decline. Websites that cover local events can help to spread the news about whatever you’ve got going. The top sites for announcing events include AOL’s CityGuide and two Yahoo! sites: Yahoo! Local and Yahoo! Upcoming.

To find popular blogs and other sites covering your area—well, you probably know this already, but dig through Technorati and Alexa. They’re not always easy to use, and the results aren’t perfect, but they can reveal sites that act as useful pipelines to people you want to reach.

If you’re planning an event dealing with my field—comic books and graphic novels—I’ve got two great places to contact. Publishers Weekly’s The Beat often recommends public appearances by comics creators all around the country, and the Comics Reporter has a pretty comprehensive events calendar.

One last thing. As a journalist by training, I know how crazed and disorganized my colleagues and I can get. When you send out a message to journalists, follow it up a few days later with something like this: “Last Wednesday, I sent you an e-mail about our upcoming event. Did you receive the e-mail—and if so, are you planning to cover the event?” To refresh the journalists’ memories, your follow-up should include a copy of the entire original message. And obviously, you should send out another reminder a day or two before the event.

There are a lot of other ways to pull the press your way – phoning TV stations, mingling at the local press club, and so on. Whether you go by those routes or ones that are, let’s say, quirkier, all I can say is: Good luck, go get ‘em, and remember your old friends (like me) when you become famous.

Posted by: David Seidman

“Graphic novel” is a weak name. For one thing, it sounds like smut. (“Man, that novel was so…so graphic!”) Besides, it implies that a book-length comic book must be fiction.

And that’s a rotten shame, because nonfiction graphic novels have a huge potential readership. The Zogby polling group just released a new survey on books and reading. It found that the most popular genres after general fiction are nonfiction: history, current events / politics / international affairs, biographies, and religion / philosophy. Library Journal’s 2008 book-buying survey says that the books with the highest circulation are in the medicine/health category. An Associated Press / Ipsos poll says that the most-read books in 2007 were the Bible and other religious works; history and biography were popular, too. Nonfiction sells.

So why does nonfiction account for only two percent of all graphic novels?

I took that figure from Amazon.com, which lists 74,021 graphic novels, of which only 1,573 are nonfiction. Quite a few of them aren’t graphic novels at all but prose nonfiction about comics like Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography and The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America.

Maybe there are so few nonfiction graphic novels because they don’t sell. Or maybe not.

Rank Amazon’s GNs by sales. You’ll find that the top one percent – in fact, the top one-third of one percent – includes plenty of nonfiction. There’s history and current events like The 9/11 Report and Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History series, and memoirs such as Fun Home, Persepolis, and Maus.

What’s more, Joe Sacco’s work of comics journalism Palestine seems to find new readers every time the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heats up. Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is virtually required reading for anyone interested in comics. And Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor became an Oscar-nominated movie.

Publishers for kids know the strength of nonfiction GNs. Capstone Press’ Graphic Library series has dozens them, covering history, biography, and science (including – cough, cough – my own Samuel Morse and the Telegraph). Lerner Publications has its Graphic Universe line, Rosen Publishing has Graphic Nonfiction, the British publisher Osprey’s Graphic History imprint focuses on wars and battles, and Gossamer Books publishes nothing but nonfiction graphic novels.

But where are the graphic-novel equivalents or adaptations of the nonfiction that adults buy? It’s hard to find comics versions of spiritual and self-help books like The Purpose-Driven Life, The Secret, The Last Lecture, and A New Earth. There aren’t many political manifestoes like Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope and Ron Paul’s The Revolution. There’s a shortage of GNs full of advice along the lines of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, or Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. And where are the GN editions of food books like The South Beach Diet? As my retailer friends say, we’re leaving money on the table.

If publishers start generating graphic novels for grown-ups in a variety of nonfiction genres, will retailers and librarians stock them? Maybe not immediately, but I think it’ll happen. I can imagine publishers producing floods of squarebound comic books full of happy-talk spirituality, oversimplified investment counseling, rants about government, and hardnosed commands about how to eat, behave, feel, think, and live.

Say, publishers? Take your time, okay?

Posted by: David Seidman