Young Adult Literature: Graphic Novels

Titles Discussed

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Azumanga Daioh by Kiyohiko Azuma

Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Genre Overview

The term “graphic novel” first came into popular use in the late 1970s to describe book-length works that used comic-book formats and sequential illustrations to tell their stories. The term became more popular in the 1980s and 1990s as graphic novels garnered increased attention from critics, with Art Spiegelman's Maus (1991) earning the Pulitzer Prize, and superhero narratives such as Frank Miller's four-issue miniseries Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) featuring increasingly dark, adult subject matter. This marked a shift for many readers, as the format was no longer automatically associated with cheap superhero and adventure stories for children reminiscent of Archie and Superman, which for decades had exemplified the prevailing opinion of popular comics.

Young adults, of course, have been reading graphic novels since the early decades of the twentieth century, both mainstream superhero comics and underground, independently published works that dealt with more realistic narratives. It took some years, however, for the publishing industry and educational institutions to catch up to the potential inherent in promoting serious works of literature in graphic-novel formats for young adult readers. In the 1990s and the early twenty-first century, a large number of graphic novels were published that were both accessible to young adult readers and exhibitive of literary and artistic qualities praised in other genres; Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (2000) and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home (2006) in particular met with critical and popular acclaim. Simultaneously, Japanese-created comics, known as manga, began to flourish in translation in the Western world, with libraries and bookstores responding to the demand from young readers. By this time, graphic novels had solidified their place and were recognized both for their wide popularity with young adult audiences and their capacity to stand as serious literary works.

By necessity, any young adult graphic novel must exist in several genres at once and must be judged by its format and illustrations as well as its narrative content. Because of this, the term “graphic novel” refers not exclusively to novels but also to historical works, memoirs, and any other genre that might exist in nongraphic literature. Raina Telgemeier's Smile (2010), for instance, is based on the author's adolescent life, while Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese (2006) blends a classic Chinese novel with a modern narrative set in the United States. As nonfiction graphic novels have become particularly popular, however, it is also important to note that superhero and manga stories have not been left behind, as novels such as Brian K. Vaughan's superhero series Runaways (2003–9) and Kiyohiko Azuma's manga Azumanga Daioh (1999–2002) have also found critical and popular success.

Works

Azumanga Daioh is popular in English translation for largely the same reasons that it found a wide Japanese audience: it centers on the lives of a group of high school girls, and it emphasizes character and mood ahead of plot and conflict. The girls themselves are eccentric individuals rather than normative members of a group mentality, such as the gentle but intimidatingly tall Sakaki, who is obsessed with cute animals, and the incredibly competitive yet incredibly nonathletic Tomo. While they interact with other students and teachers from time to time, the manga remains focused on their daily lives, particularly emphasizing their relationships with one another and the humor that results from their varied personalities.

Most of the stories take place in yonkoma format, in which four large horizontal panels of equal size fill the page. This format lends itself to visual jokes while also limiting the length of the story (although some narratives will carry across several pages). This contrasts with the traditional style of Western superhero comics, where the pages embrace dynamic layouts of varied panel shapes in order to emphasize action over many pages. As a result, many of the vignettes in Azumanga Daioh are slower paced, allowing readers to get to know the girls through the accruing moments of everyday life. While the constant visual gags and bizarre behavior of the characters make the novel appear to be light entertainment at first, those same characters prove themselves over many stories to be complex, changing personalities. By the conclusion of the series, the light and entertaining narrative mode has remained, but the girls themselves (and the relationships between them) have evolved in intricate, subtle ways.

Similarly, Brian K. Vaughan's superhero series Runaways provides a character-driven narrative in the familiar format of the superhero comic. The series focuses on a group of teenagers who discover that their parents are secretly supervillains; realizing that they, too, have supernatural powers, the teenagers form a superhero group to defeat their parents and fight for justice. After their first triumphant victory, they promise to stay diligent in order to ensure that new villains do not rise up in their parents' place, leading to ongoing battles and an occasionally shifting cast of young, dedicated heroes. As the superhero narrative is so well developed and standardized by this point, Vaughan often chooses to forgo typical explanations and plot points, directing his attention instead to the characters. The team, for instance, eschews code names, costumes, and secret identities; they simply fight in whatever clothes they happen to be wearing and call one another by their original names. In place of the typical action-oriented superhero plot is a plot examining what it means for these particular young people to transform from regular teenagers into teenagers who hold immense power and rely on each other to understand the ramifications of the superhero life for their identities, moralities, and futures.

American Born Chinese also uses the graphic-novel format to explore the coming-of-age story of its teenage protagonist in conjunction with fantastical plotlines. The main character, Jin, is raised in a suburban American town by his parents who emigrated from China. One of the only Asian American students in his largely white school, he regularly struggles to find social acceptance and friendship. When he does gain a friend, Wei-Chen, he damages their friendship by kissing Wei-Chen's girlfriend. His story is woven together with two other narratives. In one, the legendary Monkey King, a kung-fu master, fights to become a deity but instead becomes a monk's disciple; in the other, white, blond teenager Danny loses what little bit of popularity he has when his cousin, a Chinese student named Chin-Kee, visits and embarrasses him. In the end, the narratives combine when it is revealed that Danny is Jin, transformed into a different body by magic, and that Chin-Kee is both the Monkey King and Wei-Chen's father. The Monkey King convinces Danny to revert back to being Jin. Once in his original body, Jin is able to repair his friendship with Wei-Chen.

The overlapping narratives of American Born Chinese create an interplay between Jin's different perceptions of himself, as well as the various ways that others perceive him. The racism and exclusion he faces from other students is manifested in the character of Chin-Kee, a teenager who personifies negative Chinese stereotypes (which are exaggerated through the drawing style), while the blond character of Danny embodies everything Jin wishes he could be—namely, not different from his classmates. At the same time, the Monkey King is a powerful figure and a source of wisdom. Taken from classic Chinese literature, he stands in for the power and beauty of Jin's heritage, and it is that power that allows Jin to reject the idealization of Caucasians, as symbolized by Danny, and return to his true self in order to repair his friendship with Wei-Chen. The graphic-novel format allows these narratives to exist side-by-side, told as separate stories for the majority of the novel before being united at the conclusion. The novel does not need to go to great lengths to explain itself, relying instead on images to do the majority of the work. Characters from the different narratives enter each other's worlds while maintaining their unique drawing styles. This echoes the multiplicity of identities that Jin experiences; he struggles to feel a sense of self while experiencing life through the intertwining prejudices and encouragements of others until, through his maturation, he is able to unite his different self-conceptions and shed the weight of racism.

Smile, in contrast, avoids supernatural or fantastic elements and instead uses the graphic-novel format to tell a story from the author's life. In sixth grade, Raina falls and breaks her two front teeth, leading to a long and painful series of surgeries as well as social embarrassment, especially as she needs to wear various types of gear to protect her mouth at the same time she enters adolescence. Expected young adult experiences, including her first crush and the challenges of beginning to establish her independence, are complicated by the self-consciousness and occasional social rejection that result from her dental injury. What transforms a fairly typical young adult story into a successful novel is the way that the drawing style and narrative work together. The illustrations are brightly colored with rounded lines, almost resembling a cartoon, so that even the most stressful moments of social rejection are lightened and palatable for younger readers. While the graphic novel does not hide from the gorier aspects of the dental procedure, it portrays them in that same gentle (albeit bloody) style. In this way, Smile is both heartfelt and honest, with its stories of young adulthood allowed to stand as they are: difficult and stressful at times, but ultimately no more than obstacles to be overcome.

These four graphic novels represent four radically different styles, both in literary voice and in artwork. They fall into markedly different genres and were even all first published in different venues: Azumanga Daioh was serialized in a magazine, Runaways was a monthly comic-book series published over several years, and Smile was a series of web comics posted on the author's website; only American Born Chinese was initially published in the graphic-novel format that the others later adopted. Yet all rely heavily on the interplay of image and text to tell their stories. It is because of this that graphic novels are not simply books with illustrations added; they are a unique genre, telling stories that could exist no other way.

Conclusions

The concept of literacy has evolved in the twenty-first century, with adults increasingly expected to not only comprehend and analyze text but to apply those same skills to a range of multimedia. This shift has been driven by changes in information and communication technology, and as such, younger people are often familiar with navigating and understanding diverse forms of media at once.

The graphic novel is an especially contemporary genre because to fully engage with it requires multiple forms of literacy. From an educational perspective, growing numbers of teachers and librarians at the young adult level are turning to these novels in order to engage students and expand on their critical reading skills through analyzing the novel. While some educators still stand by their belief that graphic novels are easier and simpler to read than text-only novels, more and more recognize the complexity of the form.

This increased appreciation from educators will continue to bolster the respectability of graphic novels as representations of the diversity of readers and publishers represented in the genre. While many previously considered superhero comics to be for boys only, graphic novels—both superhero and not—draw large female audiences as well, and many regularly feature strong, independent female characters. The influx of manga from Japan has created a strong cross-cultural conversation as well, as there is arguably no other genre of literature that young adults read so much of in translation. As teenage audiences continue to live in an increasingly global world that they come to understand through nuanced readings of visual information, it is likely that young adult graphic novels will only continue to grow in popularity.

Bibliography

Burns, Charles, et al. “Panel: Graphic Novel Forms Today; Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Seth, Chris Ware.” Critical Inquiry 40.3 (2014): 151–68. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=96688991&site=ehost-live>.

Goldstein, Lisa, and Molly Phelan. “Are You There God? It's Me, Manga: Manga as an Extension of Young Adult Literature.” Young Adult Library Services Summer 2009: 32–38. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=43913377&site=ehost-live>.

MacDonald, Heidi. “How Graphic Novels Became the Hottest Section in the Library.” Publishers Weekly 6 May 2013: 20–25. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=87499984&site=ehost-live>.

Bibliography

Abbott, Michael, and Charles Forceville. “Visual Representation of Emotion in Manga: Loss of Control Is Loss of Hands in Azumanga Daioh Volume 4.” Language and Literature 20.2 (2011): 91–112. Print.

Davis, Rocío G. “Childhood and Ethnic Visibility in Gene Yang's American Born Chinese.” Prose Studies 35.1 (2013): 7–15. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=87070527&site=ehost-live>.

Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art. New York: Phaidon, 2001. Print.