 Good morning, and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is a library commission's weekly online event, our online webinar series that we've been doing for about two years now. In January, it will be two years. We cover any activities, anything that may be of interest to Nebraska librarians. We have commission staff that do sessions, and we have guest speakers that come in as we have today. We do these sessions every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time. They are recorded, though, so if you are unable to attend any of these live sessions, you can always watch one of our many archive sessions, which are available right here on our website. There's a link on our main page. We have a list of all the archive sessions you've ever done in the whole two years of Encompass Live. This morning, we have a couple librarians from Omaha Direction. Gordon Wyant from Bellevue Public Library and Lindsay Tomsou from Le Vista are going to talk to us today about graphic novels for libraries. So I am going to hand over presentation capabilities to you, Gordon, and you can share your screen. There you go. We're seeing it. Go ahead and take it away. As you said, I'm Gordon Wyant from Bellevue Public Library. This is a clever title with the pun involving the word graphic. A presentation without a real title because I'm a bad person, and that's all the way too long to come up with a title about the history of graphic novels. It's not going to be entirely accurate. The history of graphic novels is very rich and diverse, and if anybody doesn't like the little short history that we have here, you can pester Lindsay Tomsou. She wrote a 400-page tome on the subject, and she can send that to you. Wow, okay. Good job. There are a few definitions. A really great one is by Scott McCloud. He says, Jack's deposed pictorial and other images and deliberate sequence intended to convey information and or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer, which is a great definition, but it's kind of long-winded and isn't really succinct enough for our purposes. So we'll just use a story whose narrative is conveyed by a marriage of sequence, dimensions, and words. Okay, now that can lead to a couple things. Comic book, comic strip, graphic novel, all kinds of things. So just a quick thing. Comic book, comics in general actually are going to follow the same basic pattern. They will start in the top right or stop left, excuse me, and each frame will follow, you know, excuse me, from left to right and down, and then same with the word bubbles. Of course, if it's manga, it's reversed. So let me do it that way. Manga, of course, being Japanese comics, Benoit, things like that. We'll talk about those in a bit. There are other types of comics that you might run into. The comic strip is a line or two of panels that tell a short story through the use of sequential images and words. These are like Garfield, Calvin Hobbes, stuff like that. Comic book is generally a pamphlet or magazine-sized book, and the narrative is relayed to the reader through sequential images and words. You're going to hear that a lot with sequential images and words there. Graphic novel is a novel whose narrative made up of sequential images and words. Oftentimes, it is a collection of a series of comic books and one big hardbound if they're happy and not going to let you waste $30, a hardbound copy of it, and if they're terrible, it's going to be a terrible, terrible bound paperback. But anyway, that's my own frustration. And manga is a catch-all word that encompasses graphic novels, which stylistically resemble Japanese comics. And it's important to remember with manga, graphic novels, comics in general, that it is not a genre. There are tons of genres within the medium. You've got sci-fi, you've got romance, you've got history, you've got all kinds of stuff. It's just like normal novels with presented in the same medium. Here's just an example of a comic strip. I found this through a little website that lets you make your own comic. Just to kind of show you, it's one little strip. There's all that stuff. And he's a prod. Okay. And this is a page out of a comic. This is from back around number 50. You can see it's, you know, you've got, you start up here and go through here and here and here and here. And the images kind of lead you down through the progression of the narrative. So instead of one strip, it's a little more complicated. Now we'll get to the actual history. Reflect and reasonably accurate history of graphic novels. Now you've got a bunch. It's divided into a bunch of different ages. Proto-comics and the Platinum Age. This is going to be from the late 19th century to 1938. And it's really going to be typified by like comic strips and newspapers. The Golden Age, this is when we have the advent of the superhero. It's from 1938 to the late 1940s. All of our comics start to go mainstream. And the Silver Age is the 40s to 1970s. There's more oversight and regulations that change the content of comics. And in some cases, making a lot worse. But actually make it possible for the comics as we know them today. And 1970s to 1980s is known as the Bronze Age. This is where superheroes are shown to just be human. They're mortal. They make mistakes. They do stupid things. They, you know, have weaknesses. And real world social issues find purchase in comics. And the Modern Age is the 1980s to current. There's more dark story lines that can explore mature themes and more literary merit kind of stuff. We have the rise of the anti-hero. So we'll start with proto-comics and the Platinum Age. The first big single, big comic that really, really made it big. And there's a few, you know, people that might have a contest with this. But the single panel comic by Richard O'Call featuring the allocate, which is pictured here. It was not very PC. But it was the standard thing. And generally you'd have this. This is the allocate here. You'd have what he's saying generally pasted onto his little shirt, his night shirt or whatever it is he wears. It was very, very popular. It was collected in 1897. It's the first proto-comic, which is, you know, the four comic books, or comic books is basically a book with these little single panel comics shoved in there called the Allocate and McFadden Flats. McFadden Flats, excuse me. After that got really popular, newspapers started for any actual comic strips. And Mutton Jeff is the first one by Bud Fisher. Here's Mutton Jeff right here. Comic strip becomes very popular in magazines and newspapers. Mutton Jeff is so popular that tons of imitators pop up all over the place. And the basic panel-to-panel narrative progression and dialogue trappings have developed. Here's a good example of Sneaky and Ignats. We've got Sneaky telling Ignats that he shouldn't hook his tail like that because if he does, it catch on something and it'll become unraveled, which happens on the bottom here, which I think is pretty funny, but that's me. And the comic book is born in 1933 when Famous Phonies was published, which is actually, it was put together by a small press for Woolworth's store, if I'm remembering correctly, and just kind of sold at the cash registers for 10 cents, as you can see. It was ridiculously popular. They didn't expect it to be as popular as it was. And so they just kept making more and more and more. And then the publishing industry kind of caught on and started doing their own. It became cheap and disposable entertainment. They usually featured multiple storylines and episodic comics from different artists, different stories. It wasn't just like one story the whole way through. And basically, these things launched an entirely new American medium, which brings us to the Golden Age. Who's that guy in the pajamas? Well, it's Superman, of course. Action Comics is released in June 1938 and this completely changes comic books forever. We finally get superheroes and stuff. By the early 1940s, comic books are completely filled with them. You've got Human Torch and Toro and Submariner hanging out down there with his bulging biceps. And Wonder Woman. And when the war starts, actually slightly before the war starts, comic book characters start fighting the war. You see, you have Captain America here punching Hitler. The really interesting thing about this was that this comic was actually published before. It was really popular about America going into the war, still being isolationist. But the creators were very, very passionate about what Hitler was doing and that things needed to change. And so Captain America is beating him up. And there's Bucky hanging out there. Anyway, they take part in the war effort. And the troops carry them throughout the war. Here you have Green Lantern. He's really big in big Nazis and the world is on fire. I don't know. But the troops carry them around because they're cheap and portable and disposable. They can just drop them somewhere. Here we have Wonder Woman diving into a trench of Nazis with her horse. And Superman punching a tank. So basically, comics got all over Europe and the Pacific arena that way by the troops carrying them around, which will factor in greatly when we get to other stuff. Anyway, after World War II and Hiroshima and everything, Russia's in what's called the atomic age of the Golden Age, which is where superhero popularity kind of wanes a bit. They're still out there still doing stuff. It's just not quite as popular. And the content reflects the fears and concerns of atomic power. I mean, everybody saw what happened through Hiroshima and first kind of reeling from the power we've unleashed. And so the media reflects that. So we've got Superman covering an atom bomb test. And popularity of horror crime comic books store. Just people want something that's a little more true to life, I guess. And so they have these crime stories and Tales from the Crypt. This is where EC becomes a huge force with Tales from the Crypt and all the crime stuff. And then Frederick Wortham acts like a douche. Really, this guy isn't so terribly deplorable. He just kind of made a bit of a miscalculation. He was a German immigrant psychologist. He helped to improve that patient's environment impacts their mental state. He was a very vocal and integral part of the effort to remove school desegregation. So really, he's not a bad guy at all. But he basically convinced a whole bunch of concerned mothers and parents that comic books are destroying their children. He publishes Horror in the Nursery in the Psychopathology of Comic Books, which prompts candidates to ban the publication of crime comic books. And comic book earnings are publicized in Time Magazine. Here you have kids sadly burning their comic books. Collectors cry over that every day. Oh, yeah. Stop this guy. Sad. Frederick Wortham publishes The Seduction of the Innocent. And this is the rallying point for everybody who thinks that comic books are terrible. This sparks congressional hearings on juvenile delinquency. And they firmly place blames on the comics instead of the fact that there was a boom in birth rates and whenever you have a boom in birth rates, you've got a boom in everything that goes along with it. But they just blamed it on comics. Every decade, I think, really has the thing that they blame how the world's going to poop. I mean, it was comic books back then, then it became music, and then it became video games. But the comics code authority is created as a result of this. And here you have the little badge that they use. It's created by Max Gaines of E.C. and industry leaders. Their original intent was to fight outside censorship by regulating themselves. Max Gaines was a very vocal proponent of non-censorship and intellectual freedoms. And unfortunately, this beast turned into something much more than he could handle. And the strict codes that came out regarding what published essentially ran E.C. out of business. Because it can have no violence, gore, or sexuality. Authority figures are sacrosanct and good will always triumph. And no vampires, werewolves, ghouls, or zombies. I put this in here so I could have a bit of water. Why, yes, anime person with a large pencil. I think it is a good time to talk about manga. Okay, there's really no way to talk about graphic novels currently with any reasonable and modern thing without talking about manga because it has had a very big impact on modern comics and graphic novels. Basically, U.S. Occupation. Remember when I said that comics were used as a cheap disposal form of entertainment? Well, U.S. Occupation brings those comics to Japan. And they also start playing a lot of Disney films over there. A lot in hand with reconstruction and everybody thinking about new ways of rebuilding and art in new ways really sparks an explosion of artistic endeavor. And we see people like Osama Tazuka and the early manga artists are heavily influenced by the comics and the Disney animation is brought over through Occupation. Shin Takarajima by Osama Tazuka is the first It's really nail-listed at the first manga. It's essentially a version of Treasure Island. Everybody is amazed by it over there and it sparks a huge revolution. And his Tazuka's subsequent releases like Kimba the White Lion and if you're seeing a similarity to the Lion King and if you've ever seen Kimba the White Lion you'll realize that Disney just basically stole it, but that's okay. Well, that's what they do generally, yes, they borrow. Anyway, and then Astro Boy and you can see that he's really established the basic things. Rosa Versailles here, the big eyes with the eye shine, the rather skinny bodies, things like that. As a result of this, many monthly magazines are published with serialized storylines. I couldn't find a good picture of one of the original ones, so this is one from, I think, I don't know, mid-90s over in Japan. But it's basically, if you imagine The Shonen Jump, which is published in America, it's just like that. So you've got a bunch of different storylines that are continuing in each issue. But it was just like that, except older print and not as pretty. But The Shonen and Shojo genres become defined. Shonen is more action-y. It's usually for teen boys. And Shojo is more romance and character-driven. It's generally read by girls. In 1963, Shikari Ishimura's Cyborg 009 starts a trend of superhuman teams, which are really, really big and continue to be big in Japan. This would be stuff like Power Rangers, if you remember those from not too long ago. Okay, End of the Breach. In 1968, Gona Guy, which is this little guy right here, this little Gettarobo robot, which we'll talk about in a little while, he publishes Shameless School, which completely changes the manga world. Parents and women's groups and PTAs across Japan really don't like it's scandalous content. Basically, it's a, well here, there you go. This is Shameless School. And it's just basically a school, and you've got teen boys talking about girls being cute, girls running around at beaches with swimsuits on, things like that. Basically, it's just, it was humor that any teen boy of any era would identify with. And it's hugely popular, but the Parents and Women's Group and PTA really, really kind of boost its popularity inadvertently by opposing it so much. The conflict reaches its peak with the last issue of Shameless School, where he's just tired of all the, the guy is tired of all the protests and everybody complaining about it, that he kind of makes a point of he, basically what he does is he just kills brutally, brutally and bloodily kills off every single teacher and character in the series in a terrible, horrible, like, disgusting massacre. The point being that people have less problem with that than boys laughing at girls in skirts and bikinis. But anyway, the popularity wins through and it becomes the Concert to Fan Service is Born, which is basically a cultural thing in Japanese manga where you'll have like a breeze or blow up and you'll see a little bit of a girl's panties or something like that. It's basically, fan service is the term because a lot of fans are guys and that's something they want to see, so service to fans. Anyway, the second generation, everything that's come before that has creates everything to come after it, obviously. Ryoka Aikida and the Year 24 group changed the face of Shoujo and developed for Shounenai manga. Year 24 group was a group of women writers and artists that made a bunch of Shoujo that were very successful and Shounenai is a type of, I just lost mine. Shounenai is, I'm losing my words here. I'm sorry, it's still early for me. Shounenai is a version of a romance. It's a nonsexual romance between two boys, which becomes very popular in Japan and it's not something that, and it's popular in America, it's something that's not generally read by gay men, gay boys, it's generally read by women and there's a lot of interesting psychological papers that talk about why that's so popular as opposed to your standard guy and girl romance but I'm not going to go into that because that's a presentation. Completely other thing, we could talk about that for hours. Anyway, Kazuyo Kureke's Lone Wolf and Cub elevates manga to the level of historical art. This is an amazing story, you can still get it. I definitely suggest you get it for your teen collection if you can. It's amazing. It's essentially, you know, this guy right here, Lone Wolf, he's a Ronan which is a master of the samurai and a little orphaned child here who is actually, I don't know, anyway, it's basically these two running around and the child grows up and it's near the end of the feudal era of Japan and it's very accurate historically and artistically. It's amazing and story-wise. It's incredible. So that really bumps up the ante for serious artists. One of the guys, Get a Robo, starts the mecha sub-genre. Mecha is basically a big robot, you know, like Voltron, Robotech, things like that although slightly different than Robotech. But basically, you know, the giant robots that is always so popular. And Leiji Matsumoto revolutionizes manga space opera with titles like Captain Harla and Galaxy Express 009. And Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo sets the stage for upcoming near-future dystopian manga and we'll be talking about this again because this is huge in manga in general and the graphic novel thing. And the new bloods take over the world. By 1990, manga is a global force and Clamp explodes onto the scene with Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Ray-Earth, X-1999, and a bunch of others. They're hugely, hugely, hugely popular. You go over here, they're hugely popular except they're kind of jerks. In 2000, they were so happy with what they did that they decided to take a sabbatical and left all their stuff unfinished and just started publishing art books. They still haven't finished X-1999 much to the chagrin of all of my teens. But anyway, the point is that they become hugely successful and a lot of their artistic stylings prompt a lot of new artists and stuff. Anyway, Rumiko Takahashi finds global success with Rana Hap and Inuyasha eventually becoming the richest woman in Japan. Fruits basket by Natsuki Pagawa. Really? That's interesting. Yeah, the richest woman in Japan. Fruits basket by Natsuki Takaya becomes one of the most successful manga ever. And in 2006, Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto, everybody knows about Naruto, can't get away from it, makes up to 10% of all manga sales, which really isn't all that impressive until you think about, by 2007, manga publications make over $3.5 billion annually. And that's just in Japan. So 10% of that's a pretty hefty chunk. But anyway, it's getting all over the place. So we'll get back to American Comics and talk about the Silver Age. Okay, we have the rebirth of the superhero as a result of the Comics Code Authority. They no longer can do crime stuff, horror film, horror comics or other. So they've got to go to something else. And so they went back to superheroes. And in order to do that, they made a makeover of Flash. And the fiscal success of New Flash was so huge that it prompted other makeovers. Excuse me, I have no time talking. And the comics get stannisized. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby come in as creative talent for Marvel Comics and completely change the face of comics as we know it. Fantastic Four has introduced their characters with human flaws and human concerns. Reed Richards and his wife, the invisible woman, have problems with their marriage. The thing as well. He's a big rock thing which prompts all kinds of trouble with his interactions with other people. And so basically just human characters. And the other big thing about this is that this first time, villains have superpowers as well. Before this, they're just like mob bosses or Nazis or stuff like that. They didn't have powers of their own. And we see characters with normal stuff going on with Spider-Man and the X-Men, which is actually, there's another, you can talk about the socio and psychological backings of the X-Men who are outcasts and they're different from everybody else, yet they're protecting everybody else and everything. But anyway, you've got Magneto here who has superpowers of his own, which is just illustrating the villains having powers of their own. Alongside these things that happen in the, that's the word I'm looking for, legit comics. You have the Underground Comics, which are published by independent presses that ignore the rules of the Comics Code Authority. And up here within Zap Comics, they've got their little, their Comics Code Authority lampoon here going on here. And it dealt with current socio-political issues, including sex, drugs, war protests. And the success of these Underground Comics really opens the door for the follow-up of the CCA. Zap Comics is one of the big ones, the major ones. It's where we get to keep on trucking guy. And it's hugely popular. Anyway, Spider-Man and Stanley in the government versus drugs and the Comics Code Authority. In 1971, health education and welfare asked Stanley to create a comic book story about drugs, seeing how much of an impact that comics were having with the children. They really wanted to get out there and get some anti-drug information into something they're actually going to read. So Stan accepts this and makes something. The CCA declares it inappropriate for publishing because of the drugs involved. Marvel decides to publish it anyway. And here you have it. Sounds the CCA approval. And it is hugely, hugely successful. The public support is massive. The physical success is great. And so, you know, that kind of paves the way for the people who wanted to do it anyway. So the CCA loosens the reins a bit. They revise the regulations after Spidey's anti-drug story. And it opens the door for more socially relevant stories. Heroes with a harder edge, like Wolverine here. Here we see Green Arrow's sidekick is a heroine junkie. And we have the track herd around the world, which is where the Green Goblin snaps the neck of Glenn Stacey, Spider-Man's Paramore. So with these more mature, more socially relevant stories to things that are going on, comics really kind of start to see a revolution. But even with that, you can see they've lessened the reins so much that this is still approved by the Comics Code Authority. The Comics Code Authority isn't as big a thing as it once was. You can find lots of comics that don't have the CCA. It still exists. You'll still find some that do have it on there. But it's not a big deal anymore. Comic books stores and bookstores will carry them regardless of whether they have that little badge. And we have the first graphic novel. 1978 Will Eisner's Contract with God is published. It's basically a bunch of short stories written in a comic format about a group of people living in a tenement in New York. And it's written for an adult audience, and it shows that the format could be used for serious literature. It's very, very interesting and very good. If you have an adult graphic novel section in your library, it definitely suggests trying to get a copy of it. Oh no, I forgot to do that. It's all broken. Anyway, he's saying he wants to come back. The Comics Code Authority is saying he can. He says, oh, yay. Now he's going to go stockpile some more. He flies off. All right. That's awesome. Well, the modern age has developed. This is where storylines become, and the art becomes darker. And you have a lot more art of striving for more artistic merit, more realistic images, not just things that are more two-dimensional. Here's a good example where you have Wolverine here, who's the antihero as far as comics go. You can see that there's really, he's got crow's feet. He's got lots of shading hair. It's more realistic. I mean, other than the fact that he's got giant things coming out of his arms. But anyway, and the horror themes make a comeback. So you get people like the, you know, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which, yeah, the cartoon wasn't, was kind of chintzy and fun for everybody, but the original Eastman and Laird comics were incredibly gritty, very brutal. Lots of blood everywhere, dismemberment. They did not shy away from killing people. So they actually used their weapons, whereas in the comics they just kind of had them for show. And of course, you have darker themes here with the daredevil. So once lover is not trying to kill him. And Alan Moore's the swamp thing. He really does a swamp thing in a more horror fashion, and it's very successful and great. But anyway, we have the Year of the Graphic Novel in 1986 and 87. And it sees a publication of three really, really big graphic novels that really solidify the graphic novel stage. We have The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, which is an incredibly cynical and intelligent critique of society, media, and politics in the Reagan era, and is probably my favorite comic ever. We have Mouse, A Survival Stale by Art Spiegelman, which is striking in very, very accessible images and narrative about the Holocaust from the perspective of you got these mice that are supposed to be the Jewish people and cats that are supposed to be the Nazis. And this gains the attention of non-comical readers. And in fact, it's so great that eventually, in 1992, it wins the Pulitzer Prize. And that's incredible. And Watchman by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon. This is a really in-depth and complex deconstruction of the superhero, as well as the dynamics of power and life in a poster ocean world. And that wins the Hugo Prize in 1988. These titles move the medium from comic book shops to mainstream American bookstores, which is a huge leap. And graphic novels are now seen as a valid and profitable medium by publishing houses, which means we get a whole bunch more. And the manga invasion begins. As they borrowed from us, we now borrow from them, especially if your name is Walt Disney. TV shows, Voltron and Robotech capture the minds of children in 1984 and 1985. Ninja High School by Ben Dunn and Dynamo Joe by Doug Rice become the first real original English language manga comic books. And are not exactly widely available in comic book stores, but they're not exactly rare in comic book stores either. In 1988, we find, oh, there's Dynamo Joe. Sorry, I forgot I had a picture of that. In 1988, Akira is published in America and really, really solidifies manga's hold in America because everybody loves it. It's a pen genre kind of success. You got the science fiction guys liking it. You got the fantasy guys liking it. Everybody is really enjoying it. And that really opens the door for other manga to come across from Japan, other original English language stuff to be published in the manga style. I forgot about stuff. In 1993, Viz Media released its first OEL manga in the format that we know and love, which is a little like paperbacks. OEL is original English language. This means it's a comic that is originally written and colored and drawn in English, but it's using the manga styles. By 2008, the American manga industry, excuse me, makes $175 million in annual sales, which is pretty big. Graphic novels start to gain legitimacy. In the early 1990s, critically acclaimed collections such as No Guy in Sandman start finding place in libraries. And graphic novels continue to win library awards and praise. As I mentioned, Mouse wins the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Palestine by Joe Sashow wins the American Book Award in 1996. Jimmy Corrigan, smartest kid on earth, wins the Guardian in 2001. And Percipolis, story of a childhood, wins the Alex in 2004. Cadence in ballerina's graphic novel, which is really, really cool, is a Sebert Award Honor book in 2007. And American-born Chinese wins the Prince in 2007. So graphic novels are pretty solidly established as a legitimate format and is a literary force. And graphic novels are for kids, too. By the mid-1900s, the graphic novels for children start being published. And librarians and media specialists start touting, or I should change that to a school librarian, shouldn't I? But anyway, I taught the benefits of graphic novels for lucky readers, visually dependent, non-visual learners, and ESL students. 1995, the first volume of Jeff Smith's Bone, up from Boneville, is released. This is huge. It's popular from little kids on. You've got kids who can't read, who like to look through it and can follow the pictures, what's happening, and they love it. Teens love it. Adults love it. It's just amazing and the success of these early all ages and children's graphic novels really opens the door for more. So we get things like Scary Godmother, Cardcaptor Sakura, which is the American version of the Cardcaptor Sakura by Clamp. Baby Mouse, everybody loves Baby Mouse. Pinky and stinky, which is amazing. I love that one. Magic Pickle, which everyone should recognize. And Lunch Lady, which is a lot of fun. And graphic novels start being used as teaching tools. Librarians and school librarians tout the learning and teaching benefits of graphic novels. And we've got biographies. Here's a good example of that, non-fiction. Study Guides, which we have these in my library. I can't keep them on the shelf, which is pretty amazing. Phonics Aids, classics. And Shakespeare are all published in graphic novel format and are very successful and are great at reaching the people that might not want to study or have problems with phonics and all kinds of stuff. And here's the first graphic novel. You now have graphic novels that are basically like, I can read books for graphic novels, just very big frames. I wish I could get a picture of the inside of one of these. Very big frames, big print. Very simple. Usually has arrow showing you how to read where to go. They're very cute little things like this one. If I remember correctly, she's got a little scooter and she rides it around. And so it's a lot of fun. And there's no big crisis or anything in the storyline. It's just a basic how to read, essentially, except for graphic novels. And these things really, you know, graphic novels at this point are all age groups, all, as I said in the beginning, it's a medium, not a genre. So you've got all genres represented. You've got all different interests represented. And you've got your fluff graphic novels as well as your, you know, high-brow graphic novels with literary merit, such as Blankets, which is up here. You've got little people from Blankets. But anyway, but I think that's the end of it. So if anybody has any questions or anything, I would, I can totally answer those, or Lindsay can answer them for you, or whatever. Activate again. Does anybody have any questions? If you do, you can go ahead and type them into the questions section there. Or just say, hey, I have any question, but I want to use my microphone, and I can unmute you, and you can go ahead and do that. We did not get any questions during the presentation, Gordon, so. Well, either that means either I did a decent job, or I did a decent job of putting everybody to sleep. They were totally enthralled with the topic. I thought it was very interesting. I've been reading comics and graphic novels since I was a kid, but never knew the whole history of everything. So it's very interesting to learn. Do you have a question from my librarians here, the staff here at the Library Commission? If you wanted to do a recommendation, what would be the first five graphic novels that you would recommend librarians would buy if they were starting up a collection for the first time? Well, that would really depend on the age group. True, yes. So I think for kids, my first suggestions would be Baby Mouse, Munch Lady. Let's see what else is hugely popular. They have, let's see, there's a good and short OEL manga series that Tokyo Pop published called Peach Fuzz, which is about a girl and her pet ferret. The pet ferret believes that she's a princess of some sort. But the girl is or that the ferret's a princess? The ferret believes it's a princess. And the kids really like that. So that's three, let's see, Magic Pickle, of course, is very popular. I'm trying to think of another one that Alice really loves back there. The what now? Oh, Lindsay's got something. Okay, what is it? Okay, Lindsay says her library has had very big success with twisted journeys for kids. It's like a horror chooser-on-adventure kind of thing. Oh, nice. Which reminds me a great graphic novel to have is Meanwhile, which is recently published. Which is a great kind of chooser-on-adventure kind of thing. The format is really cool. There's a ridiculous amount of possibilities you can have. And it all starts with your decision to decide between you having vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream. And that's really everybody likes that, but it's crazy. For teens, the first four that I would definitely get would be Volume One of Sandman. Oh, yeah. And they've got these great collections that are very expensive. They run about $80 with a BWI or Ingram discount. But they're totally worth it. I've had them for years now, and I've never once had to send them to men. So the binding's really good. It's totally worth it. And that's good, yeah, because getting them that way better than all the individual comics that last a while longer. Oh, yeah. So definitely Sandman. I would definitely get Bone. I would get some X-Men or Spider-Man. One of those comics, just your general superhero comics that are popular. And really any of those would do well. Daredevil, X-Men, Spider-Man, really any of those. Beyond that, I kind of feel that Blankets is really, really important to have as a teen. It's a very big graphic novel, but it's a great exploration of young love from a teen's perspective in a very restrictive household. It's very good, but there is some sexual content in that. There's no, I don't remember there being any full frontal nudity or anything like that. But there is an instance of sex happening, so you might need to look at your community and what is acceptable within that community. What you can get away with really. I tend to push the envelope an awful lot in my collection because we don't have an adult graphic novel collection. But if you do, you might want to pick up the 9-11 commission report in the graphic format. Kids use that for reports an awful lot, and it's a very interesting way of presenting that information. Oh yeah. It's very good. Let's see what else. Pride of Baghdad, I would definitely suggest. It's absolutely amazing. Of course, you have to have the Prince winner of American Born Chinese. You do need to have that. Really, there's way too many. Washington would be a great one to have. A lot of it is talk to whoever you're thinking of buying for, whether it's the kids, teens, or adults, and see what they might already be interested in. Just like any other collection of elements. One of the more domestic ones that you should totally have on the superhero side is Runaways. That's probably one of the most popular superhero groups for the teen section. I really love them. Just kind of talk with the people who you're looking to help with. If you have a teen advisory board, talk with them. Generally, if you don't have a graphic novel collection already, you can generally figure out from your normal attendees to programs like that. The teens and the kids and adults who are your graphic novel readers and talk with them about it. As with anything, well, not necessarily everything. But do do some research first. Look at some reviews if you can read the graphic novel before you add it. Interlibrary loan it. Go to the borders and just hang out. Do whatever and just read through the stuff. For adults, there's a lot of stuff that is really, really good. Definitely you should look into. The tough thing with adults and the teen collections is there is a big overlap between the interests. So it's kind of hard to. But with that, you can do things like with the adult section, you could do the Love and Rocket series, which is really good. See what's another good one. The Walking Dead would be a great one for older teens and an adult collection, especially with the AMC series. That's definitely a good one to go with. They're going to be asking for that if you don't already have it. They definitely will. There's just quite a few that are really great for adults. A lot of Alan Moore's recent stuff is very adult. He did an incredible deconstruction of the female characters from various fairy tales and especially Disney stuff. Oh jeez, what is this called? Oh, I totally forgot what it's called. Oh, I'm an idiot. What do you say? Yeah, I don't know. I'm sorry, I'll try to think of it in some email or whatever if people are interested. But it's a really interesting deconstruction of the psychology and sexuality of these girls. Like Alice in Wonderland, and I can't remember some of the others. I read it a while ago when it was published. I can't put it in my teen collection, so I don't. It is a very adult book, but it is very beautifully done and very well put together. Let me actually just try to see if I can find that. I'll do a quick Google search. Alan Moore. Yeah, that's it, Lost Girls. There we go. You can see Alan Moore who looks like, and his wife, well not exactly wife, who wrote it with. He looks like a total homeless person. But Lost Girls is what it's called, and there's a picture. I don't know if it's still broadcasting. Yes, we see it. And here's just an example of the inside there, looking even more like an homeless person in the background. But it's a really, really amazing thing. I would definitely suggest that for an adult section. But there's quite a few out there that are really great. See, I'm trying to look at my personal collection here and see if I have anything I can suggest. But I've got mostly teen stuff, other than the Love and Rockets. But really, as Krista mentioned, you want to talk with your patrons. And they'll give you a general idea of what you need to get. I have another question about cataloging of these graphic novels by subject or format. Or both, I guess, might be an option. That's actually a common question. And a lot of libraries do it in different ways. If you go by Dewey, they're going to end up in like 741 point, something or other. And that's fine if people know where to find it. If you have a large enough collection, you can try to do subject and genre headings and things like that. I think my budget and space restrictions, I don't really have a large enough collection for that. I have a decent and large collection, but not large enough to divide it into that. So what we do is we divide them up into children's and young adults. And then they're all tossed kind of in the same area. They're not filed with the nonfiction, so they don't have the 741, they don't have that designation. They're just like young adult graphic novels or juvenile graphic novels. I do separate my manga from the graphic novels and domestic comics just because the manga collection is big enough. It's about the same size as my graphic novels and domestic graphic novels collection. And it's just good to have them separated because it makes it easier for people who are looking for specifically manga or people who are looking for, say, the same man books. They know where to go. They're in the same areas, but they're separated on different display racks. That's how we do it. Really, it depends on your library and what works best for you and how large your collection is. So if you have a big enough collection to divide it into genre, that'd be really, really cool. If my collection was big enough and I had enough space for that, that would be amazing. But really, I think you generally will do just fine having a graphic novel section, and then everybody knows where it is, where to go, and it's such a visual medium that having a browsing collection isn't a bad thing at all. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You can look at what they're looking for that way. If there's any way that you can display some of your collection base out, it's a huge benefit because of the visual nature of them. They'll circulate a lot more. I don't know if that answered your question at all, but it's such an open-ended thing. It's really dependent on the library and how you would like to set it up. Does Lindsay have any titles to add to the ones that you rattled off before about Top 5, or if any other titles that she was thinking of that maybe you didn't mention? I'm going to put it on her head and she can make her talk. She's running away. She's very shy. Do you have any? I can read them. She said that I mentioned most of the ones she was suggesting. Were there any that I didn't suggest? There's got to be some. Our interests are... Oh, yeah, duh. Scott Pilgrim. You've got Scott Pilgrim, definitely, for your teen collection. The movie was successful enough that it's really three and a half people were going to check it out just because of the name recognition, but it's also a fabulous, fabulous book for teens. The series is absolutely amazing. I believe I've had to replace my copies of these ones already, which is good and bad, but they circulate a lot, so definitely Scott Pilgrim. Oh, yeah, she does bring up an interesting thing. If you don't have a graphic novel collection, you probably already have comics like Calvin and Hobbes and Simpson's collections, things like that, in your collection and are probably extremely successful. Those can work fantastic in a graphic novel collection, as well as kind of easing people into a graphic novel collection if it's your new collection. And do a display like if you liked Calvin and Hobbes, try this. Oh, yeah, they do that kind of thing in the bookstores all the time. It works well. And that's just part of your reader's advisory, same concept. So really, if you're putting together a new graphic novel area, definitely utilize the resources that you have in your comics collections, like your comic strip collections, like Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield and Peanuts, all that good stuff. Any other questions? I hope I'm answering your questions well. Yeah, nothing else at the moment? No, looks like we've covered everyone's current questions. If nobody has anything else, I think we can wrap it up. Anything else you guys want to say on your end? I just want to say thank you for coming and listening to me right along. Like I said, I have the greatest mic voice in the world. You're fine. If you do have any questions at all, I believe my email should be on the, isn't it on the thing somewhere? On the sign up thing somewhere? Or we can put it on there if you want. Yes, it's not by default, but yeah, sure. If you have any questions, you can just shoot me an email. Or if you want to read Lindsay's 400 page tome on the history of comics and graphic novels, which is much more in depth than what you've just seen, you can email me and I can pester her until she sends it to you. Or you can email her. Would you be okay with them putting your email? Yeah, she says you can put her email. Okay, so when we put the recordings up, the recording up for this will have contact information for both of you guys on there. So if you do want to know any more. Like I said, this is very interesting for me. Like I said, I learned a lot of stuff that I didn't know about the history of it. Like I said, I've been reading for years, and I even found a few titles that I want to ask for Christmas possibly that Lost Girls won obviously, and also Peach Fuzz sounded very interesting of ones that I haven't read yet. Yeah, Peach Fuzz is fun, and Lost Girls is amazing. Awkward confusion. No, that's okay. So we are going to wrap up for the day here and for the morning. And as I said, this has been recorded, so we'll have recording up later today, tomorrow for everyone to watch. And like I said, with the contact information, we'll be included as well. And we hope you will join us next week when our session will be on Ferber for all you catalogers out there where Emily Nimsacont, the cataloging librarian here at the commission, will talk a little bit about Ferber and how you get into doing that for your cataloging. So I hope to see you again next week. Thanks very much, Gordon and Lizzie, and thanks everyone for coming. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.