Okay, I Get the Graphic Novel Hype Now
At the start of March, I owned zero graphic novels. A month later I own fifteen. So what happened? Lack of self-control around buying books for one, that’s obvious, but I’ve also awoken to the magic of graphic novels. Most of my reading leans towards literary fiction and serious non-fiction and, don’t get me wrong, I love it. But I also find I’ve neglected so many other parts of the book world.
When I picked up the first book in the Heartstopper series of graphic novels, it was mainly because of the upcoming Netflix series. I got comfortable on the sofa and started reading, and I quickly realised what graphic novel lovers have been enjoying and exactly what I’d been missing out on. It was like watching the most binge-able TV series. I found myself racing through the story, marvelling at every illustration. Literary fiction rarely comes as part of a series, with the odd exception, so getting to the end of a book I love often means the end of the journey with those characters and their lives. But graphic novelists live for a series, and before the end of the week I’d inhaled the next three Heartstopper volumes (Alice Oseman’s final instalment is due in 2023).
On the hunt for another book to satiate my newfound interest in graphic novels, I stumbled upon Stone Fruit by Lee Lai. Following queer couple Bron and Ray through a breakup, Stone Fruit explores ideas of family and found family. The melancholy tone and strained relationships are captured in illustrations that echo with sadness and tenderness. It felt like a very different world from Heartstopper’s giddy optimism, and I saw the different styles of the two authors with new appreciation.
Thoroughly ill with graphic novel mania I then texted my boyfriend, who had suggested a series of graphic novels to me on multiple occasions, and I had foolishly ignored him. I came into graphic novels knowing nothing, so I had no idea what the bestsellers were, or where I should go next. Which felt equivalent to wanting to read classics having never heard of Jane Austen. Enter, the Saga series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, epic space opera and overall mind-bending, sexy alien romp. With nine volumes published so far, it was like discovering The Sopranos and discovering there are six series to indulge in. I’m currently five volumes in but check back with me in a week or so.
