Celebrate Reading! Stories, Images & Text @ the Library

This book results from a collaboration between comics publisher VIZ and the World Bank. The Manga style illustrations and storylines that describe issues from climate change to child soldiers to HIV/AIDS aim to bring awareness to what the World Bank describes as the “biggest crises facing humanity”. Rei is a teenage orphan who uses his martial arts skills to travel the world and fight these global problems.

This story gives voice to the author, Satrapi, daughter of Marxist revolutionaries and great-granddaughter to an emperor. The graphic novel format is used to depict childhood in Iran during the 1980s. Black-and-white drawings are used to convey the complex political situation as seen through a child’s eyes. Frames are used to emphasise and contrast repression, norms and stereotypes in society.

This work published by Magabala Books was awarded the 2011 Kullari NAIDOC Literary Award. It is one of the first Indigenous graphic novels and is set in the multicultural pearling town of Broome in the 1940’s. The story tells a tale of friendship, courage and cultural diversity. Magic, dragons, good and evil are brought to life by McKenna’s vivid illustrations that use the rich ochres and earthy colours of the outback. The incorporation of panels as a visual device helps the reader to engage in the action and identify with our heroine Ubby.

This story about a Teen Girl expressing herself and identity through drawing is reflected through the use of the picture frame as a device that depicts both the constraints in her life and the ability and means by which to overcome them. Paige Turner has moved to New York. Loneliness and a sense of alienation overwhelm her. She secretly longs to be an artist and keeps a journal to help her come to terms with life. The author takes us on an emotional and visual roller-coaster as we watch Paige grow in self-confidence.

This cult classic can be identified as part of an American social realist tradition through which the story of Jimmy Corrigan, a sad, pathetic “everyman” is told in full depressing detail. Chris Ware uses a mixture of comic panels, fake advertisements, ephemera and beautiful architectural detail to further illustrate the mundaneness of Jimmy’s life. This title has won numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Award, 2001.

This graphic novel uses realism in combination with film storyboarding conventions. These traditions are used skillfully to convey the realities of daily life for Coraline and open the door to the alternate world she inhabits in her imagination. Cinematic close-ups, frames and panels are used to convey feelings of entrapment, horror and fear to weave a tale that merges fantasy with reality. Reciprocal visual representations are reinforced by the creation of this story across the mediums of book, film, video game.

Hinds retells Homer’s gripping epic poem in pictures with a judicious and ironic minimal use of words. The pencil and watercolour images track the original twenty-four-chapter order. Flashbacks, multiple narrators, bloody climax and peaceful conclusion. Frames (shape, number and palette) contribute to the pace of the adventure and the passing of time.

Gregor Samas has awoken to find himself transformed into a cockroach. Peter Kuper’s powerful illustrations breathe new life to this classic tale of alienation. Kuper uses black and white, different size panels and lettering to evoke emotions of fear, anger and humour. The use of speech bubbles and ambient sounds encourage the reader to empathise and engage.

This is an example of a graphic novel adaptation of a popular young adult book. The novel is made accessible to kids who have trouble with lots of text. Other examples include: Twilight, Vampire Academy, Alex Rider, etc. The panel layout makes the storyline easy to follow. Some of the frames are set at an angle depicting the characters from above. This device adds a different perspective and contributes to the drama in the action-scenes.