Graphic Novels are still growing!  Nielsen Bookscan reports that they grew 35 percent from 2004 to 2005, which is right about the time that libraries started to get on the bandwagon.  This article has all the stats, but also some real bad advice like reading about the genre before beginning to read the actual graphic novels.  While that is fine for some, many understand the genre already because they read comics as children.  The teens who read and love graphic novels are not worried about understanding the genre as a whole, they are just jumping right in and enjoying it.  Try it!

BookPage has an article on new graphic novels where the perspectives are a-changing.  The article covers traditional comic heroes, comic books, manga, and informational books on the genre. 

School Library Journal’s cover story for this month offers information on Graphic Novels for (Really) Young Readers.  This is a great list of graphic novels for the younger set, including some of my favorites like the Owly series and Bone.

Woot!  Tamora Pierce, author of so many great fantasy books for teens that it is impossible to list them, has signed an exclusive deal with Marvel Comics.

“Her first project will be WHITE TIGER.
Tamora’s going to revisit the concept, linking it to the original Tiger
and creating a new female hero with street smarts, guts, and a whole
lotta obsession. I hope all Marvel fans will take a look and join us on
this new adventure.”

I definitely will!

For kids at the Chicago Sun-Times has a brief article on the new graphic novel series, Babymouse by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm. Many of us are looking for good graphic novels for younger children, and this is a good one for elementary age girls.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has this article: Graphic novels catch eyes and minds of students which contains the following section:
“Max Yela, head of special collections at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee libraries, said he’d like to start collecting more graphic novels. On Wednesday, the school is slated to host a talk by graphic novelist Art Spiegelman, who won a Special Citation for Letters from the Pulitzer Board in 1992 for his book “Maus” that depicted Jews as mice and Nazis as cats.
Yela said his collection documents changes in books and communications, particularly since the advent of computers. Graphic novels, he said, are a big part of that.
“I think it’s inevitable in many ways that graphic literacy will have a greater weight,” he said. “Do you let go of the traditional ways of educating students, in terms of text-literacy? No. But I do think teachers will have to come to grips with the fact that graphic-based communication is going to become more prevalent.””

This is a handy list for librarians to have: Titles available both as anime and manga in the United States. It is nice because the titles of the anime and manga often differ, so someone not familiar with the films and books may not even realize that they are the same story and characters.

Bags and Boards is a blog from Variety that follows the comic book industry.

Japanese Sound effects and what they mean is exactly that, an alphabetical list of Japanese sound effects that you will find in manga. Great fun!