BELLOWS FALLS — Comic books have long been considered kid stuff, bought at newsstands and drugstores and hidden under the bed with the other unwholesome goods of childhood.
With a new name and revamped image, graphic novels are finally working their way into the mainstream of literature, newly finding their place as a fresh and viable format for storytelling.
Now that graphic novels have arrived to a place of respectability, one woman in Rockingham is doing her best to make sure they stay.
Rockingham Public Library Youth Librarian Samantha “Sam” Maskell, a lifelong lover of comic books, has been instrumental in bringing the community's attention to the art form by adding almost 500 graphic novels to the library's collection.
Maskell says patrons' attitudes over the years “have changed from surprise that we have such a novelty to an expectation that we should not only have this section in the library, but that we should be continually getting the best and the newest.”
“The youth collection has had a graphic novel collection the longest - since about 2003 - and houses a majority of the collection,” Maskell says. “The collection in the main section of the library is growing as adult interest in graphic novels and younger adults in their 20s and 30s discover - or rediscover - them.”
Maskell has served as the force behind many recent programs at the library, including weekly graphic novel discussion groups, movie marathons, art shows, and lectures about the medium.
“The public response to the graphic novel series we had recently was fantastic!” she says.
As a result of that series, which combined reading groups, guest speakers, and movie nights, “We found that many adults were curious about graphic novels," Maskell says, adding that "the series definitely helped spark more interest in graphic novels among our adult patrons and the community at large.”
Haskell also runs a group for teens called the AnimeNiacs, its name a play on the word anime, the term for Japanese-style animation. The group has met weekly for four years.
She points out that people are often surprised to find graphic novels that they may not want their young children reading.
“Graphic novels are a format, not a genre,” Haskell says. “They include any genre that you would find in fiction and nonfiction and they are for all ages.”
As Sierra Gaffney, a young graphic novelist living in East Dummerston, comments, “They follow the same categories that regular novels do.”
“Art Spiegelman's Maus series, retelling his father's experience in Auschwitz circa World War II, or Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, depicting the Iran revolution - how could they fall under the same category as newspaper comics?”
A new generation of Vermont comic artists
She says she was first “instantly inspired” by the appearance of Pokémon in the 1990s, one of the first instances of anime in the U.S. mainstream. She started drawing in the anime style, then later branched out to find her own, which can be seen at www.twelfth.deviantart.com.
Gaffney says this media is “still kind of kept in the dark” in southern Vermont.
“We live in a very artistic area, but it's more artistic in the traditional media sense,” she says. “When I say that I want to pursue something in the area of comics or animation, I don't think a lot of people realize how far both of those genres have come.”
“The more libraries and book stores that carry graphic novels and things of the like, the more people will be inspired by them,” Gaffney points out.
Another Vermont cartoonist, Megan Baehr, chose to return to Putney after receiving her B.A. degree in cartooning from the School of Visual Art in New York City.
“The first comic I drew after returning to Vermont was inspired by a four-mile walk along the back roads hugging the apple orchard near my house,” Baehr says. “In my opinion, the comic is all the more beautiful and meaningful for it. I believe living in Vermont will continue to have this effect on my work.”
Baehr, too, was initially inspired and influenced by the appearance of anime and manga - Japanese comic and graphic-novel art - in the United States during the 1990s, but grew up to find other inspiration and to develop her own style.
“Some of my current favorite artists include Jeff Smith, Craig Thompson, Aaron Renier, Steve Bissette, and Doug TenNapel,” says Baehr, whose own work can be found at www.friedwontons.com.
Of the challenges of working in Vermont, she says, “The hardest part of working in a rural setting is that I'm no longer immediately surrounded by my peers. I have to drive at least an hour to meet up with cartooning buddies, so it doesn't happen nearly as often as I would like.”
But despite the distance, “there is a strong and ever growing community of cartoonists in Vermont and nearby,” Baehr says. “Pretty soon this might not be so much of an issue!”
She may well be right. White River Junction boasts the Center for Cartoon Studies, a school devoted exclusively to sequential art, founded in 2004.
The center offers a new master of fine arts program, a testament to the dedication of the faculty and students. According to the school's Web site, “CCS's curriculum of art, graphic design, and literature reflect the wide array of skills needed to create comics and graphic novels. CCS emphasizes self-publishing and prepares its students to publish, market and disseminate their work,” an important and novel approach in an industry that has traditionally favored separating artist from colorist from publisher.
The center's faculty list is long and includes top names in the industry. Permanent faculty includes Stephen Bissette, Robyn Chapman, and James Sturm, the center's co-founder. Visiting faculty and thesis advisors include Chip Kidd, James Kochalka, Art Spiegelman, and Seth (the pen name of Canadian comics artist Gregory Gallant).
A group of comics artists from Vermont, New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts have also formed Trees & Hills Comic Group, a consortium offering creative, networking, and social opportunities - like drawing parties - for "creators of all ages, ambitions, and styles," according to its Web site, www.treesandhills.org. The group, whose members range from students and enthusiasts to industry professionals like Bissette, also publishes comics anthologies.
Appreciating a new art form
One of the difficulties for graphic novels to become accepted as a valid art form is that people must learn how to read them, Samantha Maskell says.
“The best way I can think of to describe how to read one is to imagine that you're reading a movie storyboard,” Maskell explains. “The dialogue/text is written to go with illustrations that not only help visualize but also add and develop the story in a similar way to how dialogue and film work together.”
Japanese graphic novels, or manga, are written from right to left, and translated as such to preserve the artwork; making appreciating the medium doubly difficult for the novice reader.
Another stumbling block for the medium is which shelf they sit on. Are graphic novels literature? Or are they visual art?
“In our library, 'graphic novel' is its own section,” Maskell says. “I think they are literary and they are visual.”
“While kids' comics and cartoons are all art in their own right, graphic novels push the envelope surrounding our view of visual media,” Maskell says. “They give stories to pictures. The art carries the words, as the words carry the images.”
“When you have the ability to personify an experience, idea, emotion, with both words and pictures, your work should never be considered childish or impractical. It should never be overlooked,” she says. “When the characters live out their lives and remember things we do, when they mimic the emotions we have in real life - that is art.”