Good morning, everyone. When it comes to collecting

comics and graphic novels, much of the difficulty i think people

have stems from what I see as two major stumbling blocks, preju-

dices even, that everyone seems to trip over. This is basically

what I’m going to talk about. I don’t think I can offer a whole lot

of advice that isn’t already out there; what I’m really going to do

is issue a couple of challenges, ones that are easier to get over

than you might think. I believe that the key to a defendable

comic collection lies in shedding some of the attitudes still di-

rected towards comics, and according them the same respect as

every other book that we buy.

Probably the most glaring issue when we begin to talk about

collection development for comics and graphic novels is, of

course, the issue of the medium itself. Unlike the other print ar-

eas under discussion today, comics are a largely visual story-

telling medium where much, if not all, of what is going on is not

described by prose, but pictured as art. And this is where much

of the hesitation and consternation when buying comics comes

from. Now, without going into a lengthy scientific explanation, i

think it’s still pretty safe to make this one statement: pictures, by

and large, have a much more immediate and arresting effect on

human perception than descriptive text. We’ve all heard the

phrase ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words.’ (For our purposes

here, I imagine we could rewrite it as “A picture of one naked

boob is worth a hundred pages of Zane.”) Well, said quote, as it

was originally written in 1927, actually reads like this: “A pic-

ture’s meaning is worth ten thousand words.” I like this a lot bet-

ter, because it paints a more harmonious picture. It says, at least

to me, that pictures and words are not so terribly opposed to each

other, that they’re just a different way of telling a story. And

herein lies the point.

I often find that a lot of my colleagues are pretty freaked

when collecting comics because of images portraying certain

things that they wouldn’t be freaked by in a “regular” book. A

great many of us have books in our teen collections that describe

adult themes, sexual situations, drug use, and violence. And we’ll

defend the presence of these books in our collections, and most

often rightly so. But many find it much more difficult to accept

showing these things as opposed to describing them. My ques-

tion, and my first challenge, really, is why? Is the violence in

Steve NIle’s 30 Days of Night any more horrific than that of Dar-

ren Shan’s Demonata series? The sexual situations in Melvin

Burgess’ Doing It or Daria Snadowsky’s Anatomy of a Boyfriend

are actually far more explicit than nearly anything I have in my

comic collection that might be considered risque, whether it be

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman or CLAMP’s Chobits. And if we can de-

fend these words, then we can defend art covering the same sub-

jects.

Now, the second, and possibly less glaring issue, is the way

comics are regarded by the majority of people in the United

States. While admittedly things have changed for the better over

the last 15 years or so, comics are still by and large considered,

well, many things. They are ‘just for kids,’ ‘junk,’ and of course,

‘not “real” books.’ This is a knot that sits in the American subcon-

scious and has been sitting there since 1954, when the United

States Senate, with the aid of child psychologist Frederic

Wertham, declared to the United States public that comics were

responsible for every depravity known to man, read only by the

intellectually devoid, and possibly responsible for all juvenile

crime. The comic book industry at the time, in their infinite wis-

dom, folded like cheap suits and created the Comics Code Author-

ity, one of the worst examples of self-censorship you have ever

seen. Scott McCloud describes it well, saying the Code was like a

“...list of requirements a film needs to receive a G rating was dou-

bled, and there were no other acceptable ratings!" Essentially,

the entire industry collectively said “OK, we’ll never again publish

anything that’ll be remotely objectionable to anyone under the

age of 12 ever again!” And the mainstream comic publishers

didn’t, not for a long time. And however wrongheaded, the Amer-

ican public has believed these things ever since. Even us. I see

far too many articles painting comics as “something to hook re-

luctant readers,” with the implication that we’ll move them on to

“real” books as soon as they’re ready.

So where does all of this leave us? In terms of our collecting

comics and graphic novels for our teen areas, it leads me here.

Your collection development policy (and i do hope you have

one!!!!) is there to act as a guideline for the materials you buy,

and also as a form of insulation to protect against challenges and

censorship. Look at your policy; does it include comics and

graphic novels in it’s language? It should! The generation of

teens we are working with right now are far more visually ori-

ented than we ever were or are; and a fair majority of them are

now comic readers at some level. In 2008, comics accounted for

12% of my overall collection. They accounted for 39% of my cir-

culation. The classic image of the kid leaving with a stack of

books still exists, but there are now nearly always a few comics or

manga mixed in. I firmly believe that the same reasoning we use

to defend the words in the books that we buy can be used to de-

fend the art in the comics we buy, and that should help deflect

some of the fear of images.

Now that being said, it is true that not every comic belongs

in the teen area. So how do we decide whether to place a comic

in our teen area or not? The same way we decide such things for

anything else, really. Think of it this way. We have collections for

children, for teens, and for adults. Why? Is it because everything

in the adult collections is shocking, scary and pornographic? Of

course not. We put Ian McEwan and Maeve Binchy and Don

Delillo in our adult collections because they write books for adults.

The same truth exists in the comic book publishing world; there

are many comic writers who write works that are intended for,

and will appeal largely to, adults. Now, nearly every comic pub-

lisher and manga licenser has their own rating system now for the

books they publish. That’s nice, and often helpful, but don’t use

them as a be-all end-all method for deciding where to place an

item. Appeal is a far more important assessment tool than arbi-

trary publishers ratings, and reading the comics you’re buying is

of paramount importance. In the end, the same judgement you

use buying books should be used when buying comics, which

brings me to my next point.

While writing this presentation, I noticed that there were an

awful lot of articles published in the library world that seemed to

run according to the same theme. “You don’t need to know any-

thing about comics to have a graphic novel collection!”

I beg to differ! While that may have been true 10 years ago

when libraries were first sticking their toes into comic waters, I

don’t believe it’s true any longer. As I said before, comics have

become almost fully integrated into the mainstream conscious-

ness of the current generation of teens we serve. We owe them

the same diligence we show when collecting books when collect-

ing comics. And there is now a wealth of resources for under-

standing the comic publishing industry, as well as its authors, ter-

minology and other ins and outs.

This also means learning about manga. I don’t need to tell

you how popular it’s become. I will tell you this: manga is pub-

lished in Japan, and Japan, folks, is not America. This is an art

form being created by a culture whose attitudes, thought patterns

and value sets are quite different from what we’re used to here.

They also regard, and have always regarded, sequential art as

equal to regular prose writing. And everyone, and I do mean ev-

eryone, in Japan reads manga. It accounts for upwards of 40% of

their publishing industry and there are titles published for anyone

from young children to adults. Again, this becomes a question of

not only noting the publisher’s ratings, but reading the books and

learning about where they come from. And also again, the re-

sources now out there are extensive.

In a perfect future world, I believe we won’t have graphic

novel sections in our libraries, and sequential art will be on the

same shelves with all the other books; you’ll find the Sandman

books under Gaiman, right next to Stardust and Neverwhere. Our

first step towards that day begins when we shed our prejudices,

and accord comics the same diligence, respect, and due process

that we afford every other material in our collections.

So thats it. I know this wasn’t much in the way of actual ad-

vice, but then as I said, the resources are out there - the real

question is can you look at comics as objectively as you look at

everything else in your collection, and judge not through fear, but

through knowledge instead.