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 "Soundtracks" Vol. 1 | Issue 3
I feel the need to step outside the musical world this week for a brief announcement:
I read graphic novels. Not nearly as many as I should, but I do, and I love reading them. It’s a genre that can be engrossing and intelligent, pleasing and provocative. The term “graphic novel” has been criticized as being pretentious or simply a marketing ploy – just a fancy word for a big comic book. I’ve just gotten used to calling them that. Comic books, graphic novels, call them what you will: they are an authentic form of art and can accomplish so many things as such. And they were finally, finally, beginning to be taken seriously.
And now, as of March 16, 350 000 copies of the first volume of Twilight: The Graphic Novel will be hitting Canadian bookshelves. And I will be sitting in my room, crying, and calling my new copy of Ex Machina a comic book, simply for some way of distinguishing it from Stephenie Meyer’s latest attack.
I tried to think of a metaphor for how this feels to me. I was about to write that it was like somebody had handed my favourite CD to somebody who only listened to Nickelback. And then I remembered that the New Moon soundtrack had featured Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, and Thom Yorke. This, somehow, is worse.
For one thing, this is a legitimate form of art, but most people don’t really believe that. I am very concerned that Twilight is not going to help the case much. Being so new to comic books, I have so far only read the best, but there is an awful lot of best. And it pains me to know that, when asked about graphic novels, people will think of Batman, maybe Watchmen for a year or two, and now Twilight.
In a release on Stephenie Meyer’s official website, Kurt Hassler, Publishing Director of Yen Press is quoted as saying "Few American publishing properties are better suited to introduce a vast readership to the medium of graphic novel than the phenomenon that is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.” I’m not sure exactly what properties he was referring to, other than being a profitable popular trend. The plot is not exactly a comic book plot, there is little action, and most graphic novels don’t centre on love stories in quite the same way. Also: sex. Kind of a big part of graphic novels. Kind of lacking in Twilight. Kind of a problem.
And this is not all pretention on my part. Judging by the sample being handed around the blogosphere, the artistic quality of the novel will not be adding anything to the genre. The art is... well, fanfic-y. I have seen the same style on hundreds of faces of hundreds of versions of Harry Potter’s mum and dad. The words are awkwardly laid out in Microsoft Paint ovals and circles, in Times New Roman font. I really cannot imagine a whole 224 pages of it. It’s not a horrid attempt, but it is fairly crude. Beside the artistic design of other top comic book titles, it just looks childish.
There is, of course, nothing to be done. The graphic novel will come out on March 16, and even the $22.99 shelf price will not deter the Twihards. And I will just have to learn to care a little less, and enjoy my good art, no matter who reads the genre. The very little I can do, I can do right here; so, instead of five songs this week, I will leave you with five beautiful bits of advice:
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5 graphic novels to read instead of Twilight:
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra (you still have time to read this one before the movie comes out!
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (necessary!)
Sun by Frans Masereel (1920s woodcut novels, guys. The original graphic novels)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (a lit student’s dream)
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (don’t argue. so much better than the movie.)
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