Graphic Novels: An Introduction

My personal affiliation with graphic novels began in the glory days of childhood when Santa Claus still existed and contact with any female of the species required a thorough post-examination to check for signs of a cooties infection.

It was throughout these days that I lived on a diet of summer holiday morning superhero serials before spending the rest of the day creating imaginative scenarios for my Superman action figure to defeat Lex Luther and save the world from evil.

Life is undoubtedly less troublesome when right and wrong can be defined by whether you hold ownership over a deadly quantity of Kryptonite or not.

As I grew older and my parents attempted to lure me into the adult world of books where Sherlock Holmes solves his cases by use of deduction instead of Scooby Snacks I was offered the compromise of the graphic novel.

This early exposure came in the form the adventures of Asterix who along with his pal Obelix set about new and exciting ways to vanquish the Roman threat from Gaul during the course of each collection.

I say collection because technically such novels were simply a collation of previously published comic strips brought together, rather than a single publication of comic books.

Equally they lacked the mature storylines and themes that are synonymous with those graphic novels held in higher regard.

To say that I gave two hoots about such technicalities at this point would be an understatement though.

If anything there was significant comfort to be gained in the fact that Obelix would always be blasting through the Roman barricades by the final third of each story.

It would be a disservice to the series though to dismiss these novels as unworthy of any attention.

The juvenile sense of humour played out through a classic funny man - straight man character combination and a fantastic use of national stereotypes still amused me greatly when I dug a couple of issues out for this article.

Eventually though I did 'mature' and with my increased grasp of the shades of grey prevalent in life came a life-long obsession with Spiderman.

Essentially Spiderman is an anti-hero. He did not choose the life of a super-hero, fate simply handed him his 'great powers' condemning him to a life holding the 'great responsibility' that comes with them.

The duty is his alone to protect New York City whilst receiving little gratitude for this service.

When Peter Parker's mask comes off, much similarly to my 12 year old incarnation, he's not popular and he's certainly not cool.

It's probably this image of a tortured soul that resonates with so many people making the series so popular.

The essential Spiderman story is of course his original conception and you can read this through the 'Essential Spider-Man: v. 1' which is readily available both online and in book stores.

Included in this edition is the origin tale along with details of Spiderman's first encounters with long running super-villains such as Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin.

What gives these original editions such classic status though is the combination of Ditko's distinctive angular drawings combined with Stan Lee's engaging stories and witty one-liners.

However, having quickly read every Spiderman comic and novel I could get my hands on nothing seemed to compare to my favourite web-slinger and so my affair with the graphic-novel went on hiatus until this very summer. 12»