Name up to three books that you bought purely because the inside flap or back copy was good.
March 20, 2009
Comics and the Academic Library: Plans in the Present and Hopes for the Future
As possibly all too many of GNR’s readers already know, I began a graphic novels collection at Columbia University about four years ago. Columbia has a top-notch research collection, but our holdings can also be mined for entertainment value. I was able to find novels I wanted to read in our collection, but I wasn’t able to find trade publications of comics, despite their being reviewed in the same media—The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books,etc.—as the other titles that piqued my curiosity.
This year’s ICv2 conference, held prior to New York Comic-Con on Thursday, February 5, was a vast source of information about the industry and the trends going on now. One of the panels held that day dealt with the ongoing trend of adapting outside literary works to the graphic format and presenting it to a new audience in a new way. We here at GNR were so excited by the panel that it inspired us to go down the same topical road here, where we have gathered comics professionals to discuss what’s going on now, what it means for the industry, and what to expect next.
Alex Simmons
Writer, producer, teacher, and founder of Kids Comic Con
Do you remember your first comic book or graphic novel? If so, what was it?
I’m sorry to say I cannot remember my first comic book. Back in my youth, there was a wide variety of comic book series and genres, and I enjoyed quite a few. As near a I can recall, some of my favorite titles were Batman, Detective Comics, The Lone Ranger & Tonto, Spider-Man, and a few others.
March 13, 2009
My younger son has always wanted a dog. I, who read/saw MARLEY & ME, am a lot less sure about this concept. A few weeks ago, a teacher at his school told us about the Seeing Eye Dog program where people raise and nurture puppies from the time they are weaned until they are old enough to train. Thus our time with the dog would have a definitive start/stop date. This sounded reasonable --- and altruistic --- so I started to explore it.
