Skip to main content

Wednesday reading experience #37

Read a graphic novel. If you are not already a fan of comic strips and/or comic books, you might be surprised to find just how sophisticated they can be.

Graphic novels tell a story in graphic form, using the images and minimal text style of comics to convey what a regular novel does in words alone. The term is used about stories too long to publish in one single edition of a comics magazine, and describes both works originally published in book form and works originally published in episodic form in comics magazines and later collected into book form.

There is some debate as to the exact definition of a graphic novel, but for the purpose of this blog post let’s define a graphic novel as a book containg a single long story or a collection of shorts stories with a common theme or setting, told in graphic form.

I can personally recommend:

By Neil Gaiman and various artists:
  • The Sandman series
  • The Books of Magic
  • The Death series (spin-off from Sandman)
  • Stardust (also a traditional novel and a movie)
  • Coraline (children's book. Also a movie)
  • The Daughter of Owls
  • The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch
  • Harlequin Valentine

By others:
  • Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman
  • When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
  • The Lucky Luke books by Morris & Goscinny
  • The Astérix books by Goscinny and Uderzo
  • Some of the Tintin books by Hergé. While some of the books are racist and offensive in other ways, others are just pure fun.

Comments

Dorte H said…
I like many comic books, but one of my favourites is Raymond Briggs, When the Wind Blows (1986). It is about the consequences of atomic war, and it is funny, sad and full of tarblack humour. Besides, it conveys a wonderful sense of atmosphere.
Anonymous said…
Hal Foster's Prince Valiant comic strip is being republished and I got my hands on a copy - outstanding! More volumes are to follow, we are told.


(Note to Bibliophile: The Amazon link is for your information only. Please delete as necessary.)


http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Valiant-Vol-1-1937-1938/dp/1606991418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253118417&sr=8-1
Bibliophile said…
Dorte, did you see the movie? Very moving and downright scary.

Anon, I clean forgot about Prince Valiant. I loved those stories when I was a kid.
Dorte H said…
Yes I did, but many years ago. First of all I remember the very sad ending.
Geetali said…
I loved Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis". It depicts her childhood in Iran during and after the revolution. It is a candid and somewhat sardonic look at Iranian society. Strongly recommended, if you're interested in that region and its culture.
Bibliophile said…
Thanks, Gallimaufry. That's another good one I forgot about. I loved the film.

Popular posts from this blog

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down ...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...