Fountain of Knowledge

I do, but I read anything and everything. Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is on my to-read list for this weekend.

There are so many new forms and formats taking hold now, it's inevitable that they're going to be tripping all over each other, trying to win readers. Personally, I'd read more graphic novels if they worked on e-readers; I've got a Kindle and inherited my late husband's Sony, but they both have small screens and no color. Graphic novels will probably work on i-Pad, but I'm waiting for the next generation of those. My kids used to be huge graphic novel fans, but now they find the same sort of content free online.

I don't think they ever got rid of the stigma of being "for kids." (At least, the ones that aren't flat-out porn.) The Japanese style may have even reinforced that, especially shojo manga girls with humongous, dewy eyeballs. I recently re-read the Sandman series, and when I posted my reviews on Goodreads noticed that a lot of adult readers felt inept when reading a novel with pictures. They said they found themselves just reading the words and skimming over the pictures; even if they knew they were missing something, they were used to a certain kind of reading and weren't invested enough in the experience to learn how to "read" the pictures.

For awhile, there were all sorts of terrific graphic novels coming out--Maus, Alan Moore's books, Lone Wolf & Cub, Miyazaki As far as I can tell, that's stuttered to a stop. The manga explosion has run its course, and nowadays fewer physical books are being sold. There are still new titles coming out, I just don't see anything new that gets me excited enough to buy it, and the library has all but ceased getting new titles. I'm bully on the future of graphic novels and other word/picture forms, but the whole scene seems a bit stagnant right now.

I'd looovvve to write a short graphic novel some day. Okay, I'm gonna say I probably will--I've got a Bamboo drawing pad and the software to run it, plus a book on how to web-publish picture/word writing, which is probably all the tools I need. But I can't see doing anything with it but posting it to my website. Hmm, I'm taking a Web for Writers class--maybe that could be my final project or something. (My current homework is analyzing The Saga of Boxxy .)