The BBC’s Culture Show is clearly behind the times and trots out the now cliched report on how comics ain’t just for kids. Look here Middle England there are things called Graphic Novels and they deal with real issues in a serious way using a garphical format.
Graphic novels get real
Far from being stuck in an adolescent fantasy world, the latest trend in graphic novels is autobiographical and intimate. We look at Epileptic, the latest book by David B and trace the history of the real world in comic book form.Random House website: Epileptic
The one British example of this ‘realist’ style of graphic novel that they present is the When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs which was published over 20 years ago in 1982. This strikes me as bizarre given that there has been a slew of critically acclaimed British comic writers that have come to prominance in the intervening period such as Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.
These writers may have come to prominance mainly due to their superhero comics written for American comic companies but they have also produced great work in the ‘realist’ style. Alan Moore’s From Hell is on the surface a lurid penny dreadful about the Jack the Ripper killings but in my opinion has actually greater depth than anything shows like this normally present as graphic novels that might appeal to the middle classes such as Maus or Palestine.
Even moving into the more fantastical arena for this is where comic books can surpass all other media formats we have superlative stories which should be attracting a wider audience despite the distain that the intelligentsia seems to have for comic books. The satire of the now departed Transmetropolitan is very relevant today and to return to Moore the dystopian vision of the future in his V for Vendetta now seems to have become our reality. But where is V to save us now.
Tags: comics
