Post by Administrator on Oct 30, 2005 16:01:28 GMT -5
Graphic novels are drawing in kids, with positive results in more ways than one
By CECELIA GOODNOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Not only are comics the hottest thing in teen and adult publishing, they're getting a whole lot of love from librarians, who are scrambling to flesh out their graphic-novel collections and understand the market.
So it was inevitable that the comics craze would extend down to the original, but long-forgotten, part of the fan base: kids.
Children's publishers suddenly are ramping up graphic-novel imprints for younger readers, secure in the knowledge that not only will kids love them, but librarians will take them seriously.
As will such review publications as Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist and Voice of Youth Advocates, which regularly devote space to graphic novels.
"Over the past few years the comic book -- the graphic novel -- has increasingly become a centerpiece of our young-adult collection," said Chance Hunt, director of youth services at Seattle Public Library, who's excited about the trend. "It's something that kids are asking for.
"My expectation," he said, "is it will become a larger part of our children's collection. That's probably the smallest audience, but it's growing."
It's a sign of comics' growing status that the Seattle library is sponsoring appearances this week by cartoonist Stan Sakai of California, whose long-running Usagi Yojimbo series (which got its start in Seattle) is hugely popular with local teens. (See related article.)
It's not that kids haven't always loved comics. But comic-book publishers largely left them behind in the 1980s and '90s as they moved toward darker and more adult themes.
The climate has changed in the past few years, largely because of comics-inspired Hollywood movies and the influx of Japanese comics, or manga, into the American market.
Publisher's Weekly reported recently that graphic novels generated nearly $210 million in sales last year -- a 35 percent jump over the previous year. Sales increased by 50 percent the year before that. And at last summer's American Library Association convention in Chicago, said Hunt, the comics aisle was the happenin' place.
Is it any wonder that children's book publishers are taking notice?
Bone
Scholastic Inc., the nation's largest children's publisher, got on board this spring with Graphix, its first graphic-novel imprint. Its debut title (complete with teacher's guide) was Jeff Smith's "Bone #1: Out From Boneville," part of an award-winning, nine-volume epic that sold more than a million copies before Scholastic acquired it. The publishing giant will release two "Bone" titles each year until 2009.
And that's just the start. In August, Graphix came out with "Queen Bee," a Japanese-manga-style comic about middle-school girls with supernatural powers. Next April, Ann M. Martin's "Babysitters Club," a popular tween series of the 1980s, will get a graphic-novel makeover.
David Saylor, creative director for Graphix, said the imprint began as a gleam in his eye about 2 1/2 years ago.
"There wasn't enough being published for kids," Saylor said. "It felt like most comic-book publishers were publishing things for the 21- to 35-year-old male."
At the same time, he said, literary works like Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Holocaust story, "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," were changing perceptions about comics' potential as a serious medium, creating a more welcoming climate for a graphic-novel line for kids.
Babysitters Club
Scholastic isn't alone in its thinking. Indie-comics publisher NBM recently kick-started its own graphic imprint for kids -- Papercutz -- with comic-book versions of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys mysteries. It's adding a Zorro line as well. The books are 96 pages in a pocket-book size, with the big-eyed characters and exaggerated emotional expressions typical of manga.
"Kids grew up with this style," said Terry Nantier, president of NBM and Papercutz. "so they're familiar with it.
"Librarians across the country," he added, "are becoming very, very enthusiastic about graphic novels and welcoming them with open arms, because it encourages kids to read and takes them away from videos and computers."
Nantier expects Papercutz to go over big, thanks to new backing from Holtzbrinck Publishers, which includes the trade houses of Henry Holt; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; and St. Martin's press. With Holtzbrinck in its corner, Nantier expects Papercutz to migrate from bookstores and specialty shops to megaretailers like Wal-Mart and Target.
Holt, meanwhile, is coming out next spring with a tween/teen graphic novel by established comics creator Lauren Weinstein.
Roaring Brook Press, another house under the Holtzbrinck umbrella, recently formed First Second, a comics line for children and teens that will release its first titles early next year.
"Interest in graphic novels has exploded, and for good reason" editorial director Mark Siegel said in announcing the First Second line. "A new generation of outstanding authors and artists is exploring the form in ways that reach far beyond traditional ideas of the comic book. And a new generation of readers raised on a visual world of movies, TV and video games have adopted the form as their own."
This is welcome news to people like Drego Little, a University of Washington doctoral student who reviews graphic novels for the Parents Choice Foundation. Little promotes graphic novels among his students at Rainier Scholars, a private Seattle program for gifted and motivated students of color.
"School libraries can't stock these fast enough," Little said.
He finds that comics appeal not only to reluctant readers but to proficient readers, although "you have to choose more carefully for them. The proficient readers in my class, I give them stuff that's engaging and more literary."
He steers them to titles like "Palestine," by "comics journalist" Joe Sacco, who spent three months in Gaza, or "Age of Bronze," Eric Shanower's seven-volume graphic novel about the Trojan War.
Are comics dumbing down kids? You couldn't tell it by Little, who says he hears that criticism only from people who haven't read comics lately. The days when "Archie and Jughead" defined the genre are long gone.
"It's almost like commentators who talk about rap music when they're never listened to rap music," he said.
The Seattle library's Hunt notes, however, that not all comics are created equal. As with any form of literature, some titles have more merit than others -- and more ability to hold kids' attention.
"Just because something is a comic doesn't mean they're going to love it or read it," he said, "and that's something librarians are trying to educate themselves on."
Little agrees it pays to be picky.
"If parents are going to get this stuff as a way to get kids reading," he said, "manga would not be my first choice. There's just not enough text in them. Any kid over fourth grade, they need more text."
The trend -- good news for kids and libraries -- is even better news for a comics industry that suddenly is determined to leave no child behind.
Comics, said Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics, are "a very odd, niche market that was on the verge of going bankrupt" in the 1990s.
But in the past few years, he said, Fantagraphics' sales have grown 200 to 250 percent -- and manga sales have risen 500 to 1,000 percent -- a trend he appreciates, even if he can't explain it.
"It's frankly something of a mystery to a lot of people, even in the comic-book industry," Reynolds said. "Manga has brought kids back to comics."
By CECELIA GOODNOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Not only are comics the hottest thing in teen and adult publishing, they're getting a whole lot of love from librarians, who are scrambling to flesh out their graphic-novel collections and understand the market.
So it was inevitable that the comics craze would extend down to the original, but long-forgotten, part of the fan base: kids.
Children's publishers suddenly are ramping up graphic-novel imprints for younger readers, secure in the knowledge that not only will kids love them, but librarians will take them seriously.
As will such review publications as Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist and Voice of Youth Advocates, which regularly devote space to graphic novels.
"Over the past few years the comic book -- the graphic novel -- has increasingly become a centerpiece of our young-adult collection," said Chance Hunt, director of youth services at Seattle Public Library, who's excited about the trend. "It's something that kids are asking for.
"My expectation," he said, "is it will become a larger part of our children's collection. That's probably the smallest audience, but it's growing."
It's a sign of comics' growing status that the Seattle library is sponsoring appearances this week by cartoonist Stan Sakai of California, whose long-running Usagi Yojimbo series (which got its start in Seattle) is hugely popular with local teens. (See related article.)
It's not that kids haven't always loved comics. But comic-book publishers largely left them behind in the 1980s and '90s as they moved toward darker and more adult themes.
The climate has changed in the past few years, largely because of comics-inspired Hollywood movies and the influx of Japanese comics, or manga, into the American market.
Publisher's Weekly reported recently that graphic novels generated nearly $210 million in sales last year -- a 35 percent jump over the previous year. Sales increased by 50 percent the year before that. And at last summer's American Library Association convention in Chicago, said Hunt, the comics aisle was the happenin' place.
Is it any wonder that children's book publishers are taking notice?
Bone
Scholastic Inc., the nation's largest children's publisher, got on board this spring with Graphix, its first graphic-novel imprint. Its debut title (complete with teacher's guide) was Jeff Smith's "Bone #1: Out From Boneville," part of an award-winning, nine-volume epic that sold more than a million copies before Scholastic acquired it. The publishing giant will release two "Bone" titles each year until 2009.
And that's just the start. In August, Graphix came out with "Queen Bee," a Japanese-manga-style comic about middle-school girls with supernatural powers. Next April, Ann M. Martin's "Babysitters Club," a popular tween series of the 1980s, will get a graphic-novel makeover.
David Saylor, creative director for Graphix, said the imprint began as a gleam in his eye about 2 1/2 years ago.
"There wasn't enough being published for kids," Saylor said. "It felt like most comic-book publishers were publishing things for the 21- to 35-year-old male."
At the same time, he said, literary works like Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Holocaust story, "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," were changing perceptions about comics' potential as a serious medium, creating a more welcoming climate for a graphic-novel line for kids.
Babysitters Club
Scholastic isn't alone in its thinking. Indie-comics publisher NBM recently kick-started its own graphic imprint for kids -- Papercutz -- with comic-book versions of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys mysteries. It's adding a Zorro line as well. The books are 96 pages in a pocket-book size, with the big-eyed characters and exaggerated emotional expressions typical of manga.
"Kids grew up with this style," said Terry Nantier, president of NBM and Papercutz. "so they're familiar with it.
"Librarians across the country," he added, "are becoming very, very enthusiastic about graphic novels and welcoming them with open arms, because it encourages kids to read and takes them away from videos and computers."
Nantier expects Papercutz to go over big, thanks to new backing from Holtzbrinck Publishers, which includes the trade houses of Henry Holt; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; and St. Martin's press. With Holtzbrinck in its corner, Nantier expects Papercutz to migrate from bookstores and specialty shops to megaretailers like Wal-Mart and Target.
Holt, meanwhile, is coming out next spring with a tween/teen graphic novel by established comics creator Lauren Weinstein.
Roaring Brook Press, another house under the Holtzbrinck umbrella, recently formed First Second, a comics line for children and teens that will release its first titles early next year.
"Interest in graphic novels has exploded, and for good reason" editorial director Mark Siegel said in announcing the First Second line. "A new generation of outstanding authors and artists is exploring the form in ways that reach far beyond traditional ideas of the comic book. And a new generation of readers raised on a visual world of movies, TV and video games have adopted the form as their own."
This is welcome news to people like Drego Little, a University of Washington doctoral student who reviews graphic novels for the Parents Choice Foundation. Little promotes graphic novels among his students at Rainier Scholars, a private Seattle program for gifted and motivated students of color.
"School libraries can't stock these fast enough," Little said.
He finds that comics appeal not only to reluctant readers but to proficient readers, although "you have to choose more carefully for them. The proficient readers in my class, I give them stuff that's engaging and more literary."
He steers them to titles like "Palestine," by "comics journalist" Joe Sacco, who spent three months in Gaza, or "Age of Bronze," Eric Shanower's seven-volume graphic novel about the Trojan War.
Are comics dumbing down kids? You couldn't tell it by Little, who says he hears that criticism only from people who haven't read comics lately. The days when "Archie and Jughead" defined the genre are long gone.
"It's almost like commentators who talk about rap music when they're never listened to rap music," he said.
The Seattle library's Hunt notes, however, that not all comics are created equal. As with any form of literature, some titles have more merit than others -- and more ability to hold kids' attention.
"Just because something is a comic doesn't mean they're going to love it or read it," he said, "and that's something librarians are trying to educate themselves on."
Little agrees it pays to be picky.
"If parents are going to get this stuff as a way to get kids reading," he said, "manga would not be my first choice. There's just not enough text in them. Any kid over fourth grade, they need more text."
The trend -- good news for kids and libraries -- is even better news for a comics industry that suddenly is determined to leave no child behind.
Comics, said Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics, are "a very odd, niche market that was on the verge of going bankrupt" in the 1990s.
But in the past few years, he said, Fantagraphics' sales have grown 200 to 250 percent -- and manga sales have risen 500 to 1,000 percent -- a trend he appreciates, even if he can't explain it.
"It's frankly something of a mystery to a lot of people, even in the comic-book industry," Reynolds said. "Manga has brought kids back to comics."