Graphic Novels – Page 22

When this title showed up at work, my coworker and I talked about whether it was a graphic novel or teen fiction. After thinking it over and looking around a bit, I decided to buck the trend and put it with graphic novels. Now that I’ve read this one, I still don’t know. Perhaps I’m more confused now!

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan is a picture book for teens and adults (I don’t think it’s exclusively one or another, really!). More accurately, it’s a collection of short stories accompanied by detailed, fantastical art work. This is not my usual genre but I absolutely adored it.

This collection of short stories is bizarre yet familiar. As you read it, you are transported into an alternate reality that at the same time feels so normal or familiar. In the first story, a family’s international student decides to live in the kitchen cupboards during his stay and collects not the interesting and valuable pieces of the Australian culture, but instead the garbage and “throw away” pieces of life. At the end, he leaves his hosts a wonderful little surprise made with those assorted discards.

Another story — inspired by the cover pictured above — is about a deep sea diver in the old get up showing up in a family’s yard. Unsure what to do with this strange guests, the children deliver him to “Mrs. Bad News,” their neighbor who returns all of their lost toys to them broken. The images are beautiful and the story ends much differently than the children planned.

A couple other stories involve the discovery of hidden worlds within one’s own home and a story about what happens to the poems people write and never do anything with.

Each and every story is beautifully illustrated. This is a book that those who like fairy tales or fantasy, as well as short stories or graphic novels will love. It is part fiction and part graphic novel, as well as part book of art. Tan received a grant from his home country of Australia to complete it, and I think they were smart to let him develop such a unique book. This is a great one for an adult story time or for a family read. I am so eager to get my hands on Tan’s other book, The Arrival, because this one was just so darn good.

I think this is one of those books that proves literacy is so much more than the words on a page. Literacy is also visual, and without the visuals that Tan provides, this book wouldn’t be quite as fun. Although it’s a picture book, I don’t think this is the sort of book the younger crowd would “get” as well as teens and adults would simply because of the importance of the visuals to the stories and because of the sheer (wonderful) absurdity of some of the tales.

So, even if you’re not the traditional graphic novel aficionado, give this one a whirl. It might change your mind … or at least give you an appreciation for the fine art of balancing words and images to weave a set of fun and memorable stories.

Yang and Kim team up for The Eternal Smile, a graphic novel that uses three different stories to explore fantasy versus reality, and the ways in which the two overlap. It’s a fascinating theme that carries with it layers of potential meaning. While I believe both Yang and Kim collaborated on the storylines, the words in the book are by Yang and the illustrations are by Kim.

The first story features Duncan, a stereotypical hero in a sword-and-sorcery land who must save the kingdom (and the princess) from a terrible villain. It’s a great story to start off this trio of stories where things are never what they appear, since it seems at first that Duncan’s tale is simply one of those by-the-numbers fantasy tales we see so often. In fact, it’s not one of those at all, and the ending turns this little tale into a powerful story with a powerful meaning.

The second story is about an avaricious frog named Gran’pa Greenbax and his obsession with money. One day, Gran’pa Greenbax finds a smile up in the sky (from which the title of the book is derived), and his life is changed forever. Again, thing are not what they appear.

These first two stories are clever and thoughtful, but it is the final story, about a cubicle worker named Janet Oh, that really makes the book a worthwhile read. Janet works in an unrewarding job with a boss who degrades her. One day, she gets an email from Henry, a Nigerian prince, who desperately needs her help. All she has to do is give him her banking information, and he will give her a large cut of his family’s wealth and carry her away to Nigeria. What you think you know about Janet’s motivations is wrong. This last story is my runaway favorite – it’s so deceptively deep, and sweet too.

Unlike Yang’s Printz-winning novel American-Born Chinese, the three stories in The Eternal Smile do not all coalesce at the end. They are related only by their emphasis on a common theme. Their exploration of this theme is so well-done that I went back and re-read them the same night I picked up the book. This book especially lends itself to re-reading because of its emphasis on how we use fantasy in our lives – to escape from reality, to enhance our lives, to empower ourselves. Each story is more than just a fun romp – there is meaning there. This is what makes the book a good read, and one I’d recommend. While I feel I can safely recommend books that are fun but pretty devoid of meaning, I do try to attach a disclaimer to them (“Well, I enjoyed it, BUT…”). No disclaimer necessary for this one.

I admit that I’m a late adopter of graphic novels. I wrote them off as glorified comic books when they first started to make their mark in libraries, and when I had to read one for a school assignment, I dreaded the fact that I’d actually have to pay attention to the pictures in order to understand the story. I quickly got over this bias. I read Linda Medley’s lovely and clever Castle Waiting, and then I read Watchmen, and my prejudice against graphic novels was erased. In these two novels I read before The Eternal Smile, the illustrations were wonderful and creative and expressive and interesting. The same goes for the illustrations by Kim in The Eternal Smile. His illustrations for each story are so different in flavor that I initially thought they must each have been drawn by a different person. The drawings for the third story are particularly lovely, with each frame washed in a light blueish-gray hue – until, that is, Janet visits Nigeria, and the frames come alive with color (reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz film in more ways than one).

I still don’t see much of a difference between graphic novels and comic books, except graphic novels have the requisite beginning, middle, and end, whereas comic books are serial in nature (this is not a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be the main distinguishing factor). I’ve just come to realize that graphic novels can vary as much in quality as novels without pictures do.

Aside from clever stories and beautiful illustrations, the book itself is also a work of art. I read one reviewer describe the physical feel of the book as “solid,” and I agree with that description. It’s a surprisingly heavy book for its size, with thick paper that just feels wonderful in your hands. And it has that smell – you know, the “new book” smell that accompanies books with heavy, glossy pages and bright ink. It really belies my initial assumption of graphic novels as “comic books with a fancier name.” This book does not at all resemble the flimsy, thin-paged Archie comics I sometimes read as a kid. I’ve read some authors describe the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book as “the binding,” and that’s not totally wrong. But the binding makes a difference. This book is well-made, and I think that will go a long way in making kids want to pick it up. While younger kids may have a harder time understanding the levels of meaning in the book (the satirical nature of the second story in particular may go unnoticed), older kids and teens will likely get more out of it. Fans of fantasy stories may also come to see their favorite genre in a new light.