Graphic Novels

Storm Front Volume One: The Gathering Storm by Jim Butcher, Mark Powers and Ardian Syaf 
A graphic novel based on Butcher’s series of the same name. The main character is Harry Dresden - Chicago private investigator and wizard. The book is Mickey Spillane meets an alternative universe of demons, vampires and wizards. Fast-paced and funny Butcher delivers a story that both entertains and scares.


Read-alikes
Jasper Fforde’s “Thursday Next” series
The Iron Hunt by Marjorie Liu
Darkness Calls by Marjorie Liu
The rest of “The Dresden Files” series
Terry Pratchett’s series in graphic form
                                                                               
                                                                                                        Kathleen Carter, Freelance Librarian


Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography by Sabrina Jones


Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) became one of the most colorful and transforming artists in the world. She was born in California into an artistic family and by the time she was eighteen, she was on her way to world wide reknown.. In her travels from Chicago, New York, Europe and eventually to St. Petersburg, her bare feet, Grecian style costume and free style dance movements were the talk of artists and patrons all over. She had a very colorful lifestyle which matched her temperament and together with her artistic achievements created a very colorful celebrity status. Sabrina Jones has written and graphically illustrated this biography in a black and white format which captures the reader’s full attention and strikinglyportrays all the fullness of Isadora Duncan’s life. Written for teenagers, this graphic style biography will appeal to all ages.


Read-alikes
Helen Keller: Courageous Advocate by Scott A. Welvaert
Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Aughorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson
Isadora Duncan, My Life by Isadora Duncan


                                                                                                                  Andrea Huff, Deer Park Public Library


In Odd We Trust by Dean Koontz

Written by Queenie Chan and Dean Koontz. Illustrations by Queenie Chan


In Odd We Trust is a graphic novel version of the adventures of Odd Thomas. http://www.deankoontz.com/odd-thomas-series


This graphic novel is considered a prequel to the Odd Thomas series. The character of Odd Thomas is developed well in the novel, but I am afraid that is the only positive thing I can say about the writing. The story, slated as being a suspenseful tale, falls miles away from suspenseful, winding up in the predictable realm. The prose lacks sophistication and depth. The story is over simplified and reads more like a tween novel then and adult or even teen novel.


The illustrations are done well. They are interesting and clear and the characters look distinct from one another. The illustrations, however, lack complimentary exposition that I have seen in other graphic novels. Again, this is a flaw in the prose structure; additional exposition would of added depth to the story.


Read-alikes
Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
Gear school by Adam Gallardo and others
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin
Oddly Normal by Otis Frampton
Stormbreaker by Antony Johnston, Anthony Horowitz & others
                                                                                        
                                                                                                     Pamela Wells, Lindenhurst Public Library


Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto 


Cancer Vixen is a memoir written in the graphic novel genre. The author, Marisa Acocella Marchetto, is a cartoonist who writes for Glamour and the New Yorker. Breast cancer is not a subject that one thinks of in a humorous vein but as a cartoonist, Marchetto is accustomed to telling her story with humor and she accomplishes this difficult task successfully.


Though basically drawn in comic strip style, Marchetto occasionally leaves the panel structure and does a full-page cartoon or includes receipts or surgical reports. Marchetto uses color and fashion, both aspects of her profession, to enrich her story which is told from diagnosis to surgery to radiation and chemotherapy and ends on a note of hope.


Read-alikes:
For Graphic Novel memoirs
Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person by Miriam Engelberg
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Lisa's Story by Tom Batiuk


For Breast Cancer memoirs
Cancer Is a Bitch: or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis by Gail Konop Baker


Unusual cancer books
Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr
                                                                                                           Michelle Epstein, East Northport Library


A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge by Josh Neufeld


The physical and emotional tragedy of Hurricane Katrina is vividly portrayed in Josh Neufeld’s latest graphic novel. Seven survivor’s personal accounts are transformed into effectively powerful illustrations that give the reader a very real sense of devastation.


Denise, Brobson, Abbas, Darnell, Kwame, Leo and Michelle all have established lives in New Orleans. With Katrina’s category 5 winds looming, they must decide whether to leave or stay. Using actual conversations and simple yet effective line drawings, Neufeld shares his subjects’ resignations, fears, pain and finally, reclamations of their lives.


If you haven’t tried a graphic novel, I strongly suggest that you do. You may be pleasantly surprised that the combination of comic strip form and dialogue can still evoke as strong a reaction as the purely written word. Recommended.


Read-alikes
In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers


                                                                                               Catherine Nashak, Deer Park Public Library


Blue Pills:  A Love Story by Frederik Peeters


Born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1974 Frederik Peeters decided to write a graphic novel at age 25. He quit his job as a graphic designer and took a menial job to support himself. His first attempt, Blue Pills is an autobiographical story based on his relationship with his live in girlfriend Cati and when first published it sold over 20,000 copies an extraordinary achievement for a debut graphic novel. It won prizes at Europe’s most prestigious comic book festivals and was translated and published in England in 2008.


It begins as an everyday love story about a boy meeting a girl at a party. There is a mutual attraction then shared home cooked meals and bottles of wine. Then Cati tells Fred she is HIV positive and the story becomes more complex. Fred’s reaction to the news is depicted by his blank face looking out from the frame. They overcome this viral obstacle and move in together and enjoy a relatively normal sex life until one night the condom breaks. The anxiety ridden Cati and Fred go running to the doctor who reassures them that Fred has as much chance of contracting HIV as they do of encountering a white rhino on their way out. In the next frame Cati and Fred are leaving with a giant white rhino looming between them.


At first I thought “oh I don’t know if I’ll be able to get through this,” the introductory pages are very abstract and “Van Goish” in temperment but as the story unfolds you realize that the graphic novel is a brilliant medium for the subject of HIV and how it effects relationships and the shame that comes with the virus.  As “Kirkus Reviews” states: “This material would be sufficiently riveting if it were all prose, but the drawings of Peeters are whet elevate the book to another level...” Peeters’ girlfriend, Cati,  does have HIV and so does her son from a previous relationship.  Frederik and Cati now have a little girl together who was born by Caesarean section to minimize the odds of the baby contracting the disease during birth.


                                                                                                Peggy McCarthy, Smithtown Public Library (Retired)


Too Cool to be Forgotten by Alex Robinson


Andy Wicks is a middle-aged man who undergoes hypnosis to stop smoking and finds himself back in high school in 1985.  Since he made the decision to take his first cigarette at a party when he was 15, he figures this time-warp experience will give him the opportunity to change his future by refusing that first cigarette.  Instead of fulfilling the common fantasy of "how things would go if you had to chance to do it all again," Andy finds the real meaning of his life a week later when he has an important encounter with his ailing father.


Too Cool to be Forgotten  will give readers a perspective on mortality, family relationships, compassion and love as they reflect on their own youthful neglected opportunities.


Read-alikes:
Crush by Jason Hall
Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson
Starman: Sins of the Father by James Robinson


                                                                                                     Grace O'Connor, West Islip Public Library


Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi


Three generations of Iranian women spend the afternoon discussing love, sex and men each revealing a secret from their past. Their stories are funny and sad and they illustrate lives that are similar yet so different to ours. This is a slight volume when compared to the author’s Persepolis yet it is still thought provoking and funny.


Readers interested in Iranian or Muslim life will enjoy this as well as Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Readers who enjoy female bonding might also like Angry Women eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik.


                                                                                                      Karen Jaffe, Comsewogue Public Library


American Widow by Alissa Torres, illustrated by Sungyoon Choi


A heart-wrenching memoir, American Widow is the account of a first-time-mother-to-be who is tragically widowed when she loses her husband in the terror attack on the World Trade Center on September 11. The graphic novel format seems almost custom-made to convey the subject matter at hand. The illustration style, starkly drawn and almost completely devoid of color, emphatically portrays the hardship and challenges that Alissa Torres must endure as she tries to come to grips with her loss. Using the literary technique of flashback, Torres gives a glimpse into the lives of Alissa and Luis both before and after they met and married. We learn that after being laid off from his job, Luis is offered a position at Cantor Fitzgerald—only to fatefully begin working on September 10, 2001. Lingering over a single frame—taking a moment to absorb the atmosphere created by both illustration and narrative—serves to immerse the reader in Alissa’s experience. As we follow Alissa through her subsequent year, we witness all of the unfathomable trials and tribulations, conflicting bureaucratic assistance, and disparate public opinion that contribute to her profound personal turmoil.


American Widow can have appeal to a wide range of readers—those that enjoy a non-fiction read, those that enjoy a memoir, those that can identify with the struggles associated with an untimely loss, or those with an interest in recent historical events.


Read-alike:


Maus I & Maus II by Art Spiegelman—a Pulitzer Prize winning work by the son of a Holocaust survivor.


                                                                                             Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public Library


Bone: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith
This is the first volume in Jeff Smith’s 1,300+ page Bone series of graphic novels. The series was originally begun in 1991, serialized in 55 parts, and published in black and white. The Scholastic edition cited includes some minor revisions and is published in full color.


Three cousins, Fone Bone, Phony Bone and Smiley Bone are tossed out of Boneville and left to wander in the desert until they accidentally become separated. They each manage to stumble into a hidden, agrarian-centered valley populated by an eccentric cast of humans and some strange creatures, including such denizens as Gran’ma Ben, Ted the Bug, a great red dragon, and a couple of quiche-loving “rat creatures.”


Out from Boneville introduces the major characters in the series and chronicles the three cousins’ quest to be reunited. Each of the cousins has their own distinctive personality, each of which Smith mines to great comic effect. The first volume in the series is full of much wit and humor and is a classic epic quest adventure that will appeal to adults and young adults alike. Subsequent volumes are said to be darker and more philosophical in nature.


Out from Boneville reminds me of a good cartoon, such as SpongeBob Squarepants. It appeals to kids for the crazy characters and slapstick humor, but is just as appealing to adults for the philosophical sub-text and sly jokes that only they would understand. The Bone series can be recommended to all fans of epic fantasy and books such as The Hobbit.
Jeff Smith started his own publishing company, Cartoon Books, to publish the Bone series, and has received many Eisner and Harvey awards for his work.
Read-alikes, via Novelist Plus’ Recommended Reads list – Fantasy Graphic Novels, Ages 9-12 include:
Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Mark Andrew Smith, The New Brighton Archeological Society
Vermonia: Quest for the Silver Tiger
Kazu Kibuishi, Amulet Book 1: The Stonekeeper
Otis Frampton, Oddly Normal
                                                                                                           Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Library