A bunch of webcomics from the Potlatch graphic novels panel

[wshaffer]

The first panel I attended at this year's Potlatch convention was the graphic novels panel, moderated by Ursula LeGuin.

I went partly because I was curious about what Ursual LeGuin thought about graphic novels, and it turns out that Ursula LeGuin wanted to know what we all thought about graphic novels. We had a great big round of recommending titles, starting with the panelists and moving on to the audience.



As far as print comics go, the surprise for me was how few surprises there were in the titles people recommended. I think of myself as a fairly peripheral comics reader, but most of the recommended titles were either things I've read (Sandman, Bone) or things that I'm well aware that I probably should read (Persepolis, Maus, The Books of Magic.) One print title that I hadn't heard about was Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze, which tells the story of the Trojan war.

One of the panelists, Jenn Manley Lee, does a webcomic called Dicebox, and focused her part of the panel on webcomics. Now, I am familar with webcomics in the style of xkcd or Penny Arcade. But there are a whole bunch of comics in a much more narrative style, with much more elaborate artwork - the kinds of things we expect from comic books - which also use the potential of the web (animated gifs, hypertext) in interesting ways. I'm really looking forward to exploring some of these. Here's a list of some of the ones I noted down:

Dicebox (Site appears to be down at the moment.)
The Spiders (an exploration of the Afghan war in an alternate universe in which Al Gore became president). The link is to archive.org because the comic's site is definitely down at the moment.
Delta Thrives
Finder (I've read a couple of volumes of Finder in print. I either hadn't known or had forgotten that it's also on the web.)
The Right Number (Some neat interactivity in this one.)
Pup Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe
The Family Man
Of course, no discussion of online comics would be complete without Girl Genius


That's far from a complete list, but those were the ones that most caught my eye. I think someone compiled a more comprehensive list - I'll post a link if I can find it online.

Comments

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

It makes total sense that the titles people recommend are the ones that even peripheral comics readers have heard of, because those are the ones to have climbed out of the ghetto, as it were.

LeGuin & Graphic Novels

[elledies.livejournal.com]

So /what/ does Ursula LeGuin think about graphic novels? ;) On a normal day, I wouldn't typically associate LeGuin with graphic novels so it's a little tantalizing to find out that she moderated a panel on them. Do you know where I could find a transcript or recording of the event?

Re: LeGuin & Graphic Novels

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I got the impression from LeGuin's introduction to the panel that she's started reading graphic novels fairly recently, and has been fascinated by some of the things that they can do and how they differ from prose fiction.

She did pose two questions to the panel/audience:
- Why is so much of the "serious" comics work out there autobiographical?
- Why is so much of it (especially the autobiographical stuff) drawn in an "ugly" and "in-your-face" style?

I think the best answer to the first question was someone's suggestion that it's not so much that autobiographical work is unusually prevalent in comics, it's just one of the genres of comics that mainstream types feel comfortable paying attention to.

The second question was mostly addressed by throwing out lots of examples of comics with pretty art.

I've looked around for a good transcript, and have mostly just found other people posting their compiled lists of recommended comics. If I find anything, I'll post a link.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

True. I also have to remember that back when I was an impoverished grad student, I used to spend hours down at Comic Relief in Berkeley chatting to Rory Root and other staff about comics. (Buy $3.95 worth of comics, get a half-hour's good conversation - it was a good deal.) So I have a lot of second-hand knowledge of the field even though I still haven't read very much.