- Part 1: An introduction to the term "Graphic Novel" (with heavy Wikipedia Quoting).
- Part 2: Graphic Novels that have delighted my young children. (Recommendations with age appropriateness offered).
- Part 3: Complete Collections Recommendations (for adults).
- Part 4: Ongoing series (for adults) that I am currently reading...
My son used to get in trouble in library class...
Pre-first and 1st grade was a tough time for my son in school. We heard stories from the parent helper in charge of his reading group that he would try to read books upside down; the others would try too; he was a distraction; he was not doing what they were assigned to do, and was an instigator. He seemed uninterested in reading what was assigned to him. His library grade noted a need to follow the rules better, and indicated a need to appreciate books better.
This was so surprising to us, as books and nightly rituals of reading were our attempt to pass on to our child a love of story that my wife and I possessed. At home he seemed to hang on to every word, and enjoyed reading back to us. Further, his classroom teacher struggled with his attentiveness and had concerns about a possible need for remediation. We were so worried. The kid we knew at home was an active, laughing, and interested young boy. For two years the school was telling us a story of a boy who might need help in catching up...
This was so surprising to us, as books and nightly rituals of reading were our attempt to pass on to our child a love of story that my wife and I possessed. At home he seemed to hang on to every word, and enjoyed reading back to us. Further, his classroom teacher struggled with his attentiveness and had concerns about a possible need for remediation. We were so worried. The kid we knew at home was an active, laughing, and interested young boy. For two years the school was telling us a story of a boy who might need help in catching up...
So we had our son tested...
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| From Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret |
And the demand did increase...
He thrived in this teacher's room. Her patience in redirecting his inattentiveness was paying off. Her genuine care for him seemed to be causing him to talk about school at the dinner table more. He was reading more than ever before! He was devouring Rick Riordan books like a big truck chews diesel in four-wheel drive while grinding gravel uphill. Often finishing 400+ page third to forth grade reading level books in a day or two, we were having a hard time keeping up with the needed trips to the public library. Our son resorted happily to re-reading most of his library.
I was impressed with his voracious appetite, but wanted the "little" boy to be nurtured as well. So I broke with my tradition of buying a pile of books for the summer at the close of the academic year—a celebration of final report cards)—and I decided my son needed to read comics.
I am not sure why I felt this need to feed him comics—not being much of a comic reader myself. Maybe it was in response to such a maturing and positive year in school that pushed me in a misguided attempt to keep my son from growing up—like comics were somehow "childish" and I could keep my little boy, little. [What would Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore say to me in my naive views on graphic novels?] I had pleasant memories of reading a handful of Archies and Sad Sacks that my mother had bought for me as vacation treats, of reading collections of Garfields and Kalvin and Hobbes. Maybe he could have "young and innocent" memories by reading comics too. However silly my reasons, my decision was to buy him comics for his summer reading...
I was impressed with his voracious appetite, but wanted the "little" boy to be nurtured as well. So I broke with my tradition of buying a pile of books for the summer at the close of the academic year—a celebration of final report cards)—and I decided my son needed to read comics.
I am not sure why I felt this need to feed him comics—not being much of a comic reader myself. Maybe it was in response to such a maturing and positive year in school that pushed me in a misguided attempt to keep my son from growing up—like comics were somehow "childish" and I could keep my little boy, little. [What would Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore say to me in my naive views on graphic novels?] I had pleasant memories of reading a handful of Archies and Sad Sacks that my mother had bought for me as vacation treats, of reading collections of Garfields and Kalvin and Hobbes. Maybe he could have "young and innocent" memories by reading comics too. However silly my reasons, my decision was to buy him comics for his summer reading...
After tons of research I found Bone...
The internet is a wondrous place. So many opinions [like mine?] So many sites [like mine?] So many lists [like mine?] And so little quality control [Ack! like... mine?] But I triangulated on a series of books that Scholastic had arranged to colorize with permission from the author, and that had received high praise from the names I knew were supposed to be respected in the world of comics. The story has a true beginning middle and end. What starts out whimsically, moves into clever humor, and finishes with well developed plot and character. Little did I know that the colorized volumes had only been completed a year or so before I come across them. Bone is an independently published comic book series, written and illustrated by Jeff Smith, originally serialized in 55 irregularly released issues from 1991 to 2004.Smith's black-and-white drawings were inspired by animated cartoons and comic strips, a notable influence being Walt Kelly's Pogo: "I was ... a big fan of Carl Barks and Pogo, so it was just natural for me to want to draw that kind of mixture of Walt Kelly and Moebius."[1] Accordingly, the story is singularly characterized by a combination of both light-hearted comedy and dark, epic fantasy: Time Magazine has called the series "as sweeping as the Lord of the Rings cycle, but much funnier."[2] The series was published bimonthly with some delays from June 1991 to June 2004. The series was self-published by Smith's Cartoon Books for issues #1 through #19, by Image Comics from issues #20 to #28, and back to Cartoon Books for issues #29 through #55 (the final one).
Panel from the recommended colorized version of Bone.
The weekly fix...
I doled out one volume each week of summer vacation on Monday mornings. They took my son about 45 minutes to "process." By week two I was bored and a little curious, so I gave "Out of Boneville" a read. I was delighted and proceeded on quickly to "The Great Cow Race." I wanted the third issue. It was like reading Harry Potter that time I was sick in bed with double pneumonia. I just wanted more... now!
It wasn't long before my son was begging for the issues early and often after completing the given book of the week. I understood and was tempted to read ahead when he wasn't paying attention. I restrained myself and we together jonesed for our Bone fix. As the volumes continued, the plot developed and became more serious. The jokes remained, the whimsical nature of the "bones" characters continued, but the depth of the story matured. I was starting to appreciate the concept that this was in fact a novel, told over a thousand+ pages of comic drawings. The reading level is 1st grade; the prose, sparse; the art, clean and cartoon-y; the story, fabulous!
Comic book awards seem to have appeared in the late 80s along with the increased popularity of this genre. Jeff Smith's Bone boasts as impressive a list as any serialized story.
I doled out one volume each week of summer vacation on Monday mornings. They took my son about 45 minutes to "process." By week two I was bored and a little curious, so I gave "Out of Boneville" a read. I was delighted and proceeded on quickly to "The Great Cow Race." I wanted the third issue. It was like reading Harry Potter that time I was sick in bed with double pneumonia. I just wanted more... now!It wasn't long before my son was begging for the issues early and often after completing the given book of the week. I understood and was tempted to read ahead when he wasn't paying attention. I restrained myself and we together jonesed for our Bone fix. As the volumes continued, the plot developed and became more serious. The jokes remained, the whimsical nature of the "bones" characters continued, but the depth of the story matured. I was starting to appreciate the concept that this was in fact a novel, told over a thousand+ pages of comic drawings. The reading level is 1st grade; the prose, sparse; the art, clean and cartoon-y; the story, fabulous!
Comic book awards seem to have appeared in the late 80s along with the increased popularity of this genre. Jeff Smith's Bone boasts as impressive a list as any serialized story.
Awards[edit]
- 1993 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication[3]
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story: "The Great Cow Race"; Bone #7-11
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Jeff Smith
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication[4]
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series[5]
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith[6]
- 2005 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint: Bone One Volume Edition[7]
- 1994 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 1994 Harvey Award Special Award for Humor: Jeff Smith
- 1994 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work: The Complete Bone Adventures; reissued in color as Bone: Out from Boneville (Scholastic Corporation)[8]
- 1995 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[9]
- 1996 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[10]
- 1997 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[11]
- 1999 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith, for his body of work in 1998, including Bone[12]
- 2000 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[13]
- 2003 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[14]
- 2005 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 2005 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work: Bone: One Volume Edition[15]
And then we discovered Doug TenNapel at a Scholastic book fair. tenable wrote Ghostopolis and Cardboard among other titles. These two have also been favorites in our household. Again, low reading level, clean art, and great story. The imagination that can be accommodated by a comic format is apparent in these stories. Straight prose might not allow for the acceptance of the implausibility of these stories. The fantasy would look silly in a cinematic attempt. The comic style lets the absurd be fun and the lessons and depth to sneak in when lest expected...And my wife got in on things...
It didn't take long before my son's little sister and their cousins were into reading comics amidst their steady dose of more prose-based reading. Trips to the library were resulting in scores of borrows to accommodate the rapid consumption of the graphic pieces of literature. Anime adaptations and comic strip collections got mixed in with Narnia and baseball biographies. And then my wife found Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It wasn't even on my radar yet.
We went to see the film Hugo in 2011 as a family. It was an instant success with audiences and becoming one of my favorite movies of all time. Critics began describing it as Martin Scorsese's love letter to cinema. Selznick's tale seemed to move flawlessly between drawings and prose, and moving images not caring—and maybe needing all three—which medium was used to tell the story.The Invention of Hugo Cabret is an American historical fiction book written and illustrated by Brian Selznick and published by Scholastic. The hardcover edition was released on January 30, 2007, and the paperback edition was released on June 2, 2008. With 284 pictures between the book's 526 pages, the book depends as much on its pictures as it does on the words. Selznick himself has described the book as "not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things".[1] The book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal,[2] the first novel to do so, as the Caldecott Medal is for picture books.[3]The book's primary inspiration is the true story of turn-of-the-century French pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès, his surviving films, and his collection of mechanical, wind-up figures called Automata. Selznick decided to add an Automaton to the storyline after reading Edison's Eve by Gaby Wood, which tells the story of Edison's attempt to create a talking wind-up doll. Méliès owned a set of automata, which were sold to a museum but lay forgotten in an attic for decades. Eventually, when someone re-discovered them, they had been ruined by rainwater. At the end of his life, Méliès was destitute, even as his films were screening widely in the United States. He sold toys from a booth in a Paris railway station, whence the setting of the story. Selznick drew Méliès's real door in the book, as well as real columns and other details from the Montparnasse railway station in Paris. (Wikipedia)
Martin Scorsese bought the screen rights to the book in 2007, and John Logan wrote the script. Scorsese began shooting the film in London at Shepperton Studios in June 2010. It was produced in 3D, with its theatrical release on November 23, 2011, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Asa Butterfield played the lead role of Hugo, with Chloë Grace Moretz as Isabelle, Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector and Ben Kingsley as Papa Georges (Méliès). Jude Law, Richard Griffiths, Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Frances de la Tour and Helen McCrory were also featured.[4] The film was released to universal critical acclaim, scoring a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 83 on Metacritic. In 2012, the film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and ended up winning 5 for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects). (Wikipedia)Next Steps...
So in reaction to this week's post, I began reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret a few nights ago. I am enjoying it immensely. It has not been spoiled by seeing the movie first. I am finding that Scorsese remained true to Selznick's story and the two work so well together.
Next week: "Graphic Novels" Part 3: Complete Collections Recommendations (for adults).
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