Influx of the mainstream changes the landscape of the graphic novel genre

Graphic novelist Christopher Chambers

Georgetown Journalism professor Christopher Chambers says the genre has evolved way past its predecessor – four-color sequential art comic book. Chambers, co-editor of the graphic novel The Darker Mask, points out that the graphic novel genre is so white-hot that authors who had made their bones writing bestselling mainstream and literary fiction have migrated into his territory.

Exhibits A through C: Brad Meltzer is a #1 New York Times bestselling suspense and mystery author and co-creator of the television show Jack & Bobby. Yet he has begun a whole new career in the graphic novel genre with such hits as Identity Crisis and Green Arrow. Jodi Picoult made a stellar career out of writing, according to her web site tag, “…novels about family, relationships, and love.” She incorporated graphic novel elements into her 2006 book The Tenth Circle and, in 2007, wrote the book Love and Murder in the Wonder Woman graphic novel series. Eric Jerome Dickey, the author of fifteen novels, recently wrote the graphic novel, Storm, of X-Men fame; the novel re-interprets the first meeting between her and Black Panther. “This is a good thing,” says Chambers. “Talented people are moving into the medium.”

One reason for this movement might be Frank Miller. Most know him as the author of 300, the hardcover graphic novel, which director Zack Snyder turned into a 2007 blockbuster. Miller also wrote Sin City, and re-imagined Batman as The Dark Knight – a far cry from the Batman of Super Friends or Adam West. Per Chambers: “[Miller] reinvented the genre, iconic comic book superheroes. He rescued them from the Super Friends cartoon-type doldrums. He also turned them into flawed individuals, using that literary device to give them added dimensions.”

In the eighties, while Miller was re-imagining The Dark Knight, British writer Alan Moore was creating a twelve-issue comic book limited series called Watchmen; DC Comics published Watchmen as series and later collectively as a graphic novel. Chambers states that Watchmen rethought the superhero, creating new characters in a new universe, and showing how those characters interacted. Time Magazine included Watchmen on its list of All-Time 100 Novels. This year, Warner Brothers released the Zack Snyder-directed film version of the novel.
 

The evolution that began when the artist Will Eisner compiled comic strips into comic books continues, diverging into modern-day incarnations, like Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, whose film adaptation earned an Academy Award nomination. “Basically, they’ve [graphic novels] have gone beyond the white male in the costume and the cape,” says Chambers. “You see different perspectives.”

The Darker Mask, which Chambers edited with Gary Phillips, embodies that new perspective. Where X-Men mutants were fictional minorities, Chambers and Phillips tapped the talents of actual minorities and other ethnicities to compile tales of “heroes from the shadows,” per the book’s subtitle. “We saw a void for characters of color and filled it,” Chambers says. Contributors included Lorenzo Carcaterra (Law & Order, Sleepers), Ann Nocenti (Daredevil), Walter Mosley (the Easy Rawlins novels), Matt Johnson (Incognegro), and Naomi Hirahara (Summer of the Big Bachi).

There is, according to Chambers, a downside of this renaissance. Mainstream publishers have begun to muscle in on territory that DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, and a host of independent publishers once firmly held. Random House has amped up the assault. Its sci-fi imprint, Del Rey, launched its own manga sub-imprint in 2004. Villard Books, another Random House imprint, is publishing graphic novels on a large scale. Chambers’ assessment of this latest development is this: “Because the publishing industry is in such turmoil… the graphic novel is being turned into a gimmick. Too many editors and publishers are looking at it as a gimmick…The bean counters who destroy any industry are going to keep destroying it.”

In the meantime, though, Chambers views Japanese manga as a more imminent threat. He remains undeterred, preferring to accentuate the positive. “Manga partially influenced US comics and the graphic novel. It made them darker and the plots more intricate. For the first time, extreme violence and sex were parts of the story… Manga drove our comic book industry to think of these things as books or thicker soft covers, and to mass market them as such. This is good. It [manga] keeps it [the graphic novel genre] fresh.”

Chambers sees the genre evolving even further before the bean counters have their way. He has seen some trends he had envisioned come to fruition, like the use of the graphic novel to fictionalize historical people. Chambers imagines the genre further expanding into the depiction of true events as graphic novels, graphic novels for children -- “But not necessarily childish,” he clarifies -- along with graphic novels with characters that are different, for example, people of color, homeless, drug-addicted, and the like.

Chambers has his hands full too. He’s working on a reinterpretation of Amos 'n' Andy, as well as on a biography of Father Patrick Healy, a Jesuit priest who was instrumental in building Georgetown into the top 10 university that it is today. Chambers hasn’t ruled out The Darker Mask 2. “The genre moves so quickly. I still have a lot to learn. Everybody’s looking for the next story.”

Given the infusion of mainstream talent, along with the fast-moving evolution of the genre itself, it is possible that the wait for that the next story won’t be a long one.