Graphic Novels - 'the literary comic book'

When I suggest that graphic novels are capable of having as much literary merit as a Dickens or a MAN Booker Prize nominee, I sometimes meet with snorts of derision from not only English teachers but my fellow librarians too. Their ill-informed perspective is that a graphic novel is essentially a trussed up comic book; that is, superheroes in tights fighting moustache-twirling villains over 100+ pages.

This is true to an extent, of course. Trouble is, people seem to think that it's truer to a greater extent than it actually is. It doesn't help when Waterstones seem to only stock superhero graphic novels (that's certainly the case in the branch at Leeds), and graphic novels are tucked away in the teenage zone of the public library, a place the rest of us tend not to 'invade'.

Anyone who's read Watchmen will testify that superhero graphic novels can be literature. The weighty ethical and political issues dealt with in this chilling alternative reality, in which Nixon is still president in 1985 and a consequence of superhero-assisted victory in Vietnam is a countdown to nuclear Armageddon, are as excitingly thought provoking and stimulating as just about any novel I can think of. Ditto Frank Miller's Batman books, a clear inspiration for the recent excellent Batman Begins and Dark Knight films.

But there are reams of brilliant graphic novels out there in which there isn't a cape or 'BIFF' sign in sight. Anyone who thinks the comic book medium can't grapple with truly powerful and horrifying episodes from human history, such as the Holocaust, should really read Art Spieglman's Maus books, which deal with precisely that. Marjane Satrapi's bittersweet memoir of her life before, during and after Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Persepolis not only reads as a great history lesson, but it's a truly moving and involving rites of passage autobiographical tale in its own right.

And if intellectual mysticism is your bag, check out the brilliantly demented Neil Gaiman's Sandman books, in which the reader is invited on a dizzying, non-linear trip through space and time in the company of Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and his family Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium and, grandest of all, Destiny, complete with a supporting cast that borrows deities from just about every culture in the world. Believe me, these books have as much philosophical, metaphysical and theological meat to get your teeth into as a Dostoyevsky.

I could go on and on, but that's enough from me. Open your mind to graphic novels, and you won't regret it. In case you're wondering I'm a school librarian, and had I not been one I'm not sure if the literary merit of graphic novels would have been something I'd have been alerted to. I definitely wouldn't have been aware of the merits of teenage fiction had I not got this job: and a post on why you shouldn't rule those out is what I'll be nagging you about in the near future...