You Can Still Find Books, Including Graphic Novels, at the Local Library

In the 1980s, Marvel Comics, along with writer/illustrator Jim Starlin made history just by creating a comic book longer than 32 pages, printed on paper that wasn’t newsprint and without advertising.

Essentially what Marvel and Starlin did was an experiment to see if Marvel’s comic book story telling style could be redeveloped into a business model more like hard bound books or novels. That book was the first graphic novel (of a sort) called The Death of Captain Marvel.

Up until the 1990s, the major comic book companies saw the comic book market and the graphic novel market as two separate markets. Today however, the graphic novel format has made comic book collecting a really bad investment.

Marvel and DC both pay their writers now to come up with longer and often times tedious stories that can be re-produced months later into graphic novels.

The big comic book companies demand four issue (or longer) stories that they can collect into a graphic novel format and sell to major book chains and college bookstores that may never carry regular newsprint comic books. Once a story is produced in graphic novel format, the original newsprint comic book becomes obsolete.

Also the graphic novel version is often cheaper to buy than the separate news print issues and the graphic novels are more durable.

Today’s economy has stopped me from buying comic books or graphic novels, unless I am at a comic book convention where both can be purchased dirt cheap.

Also, the recent announcement by Borders Group that it will be closing its last 399 stores nationwide, including the one in nearby Mays Landing, has made the potential for finding books, including graphic novels, slightly more daunting.

I did, however, find several interesting and important graphic novels at I found graphic novels like The Essential Daredevil, a collection of about 50 issues of the comic book Daredevil, The Man Without Fear.

From super hero stories to adaptations of the TV series CSI, you can find a diverse collection of graphic novels at the Galloway Branch of the Atlantic County Library.

Also there are several upsides to graphic novels. They often include extra material from writers and artists notes to special stories that are not included in the comic book published editions.

The real good news of this story is whether you want to read up on the adventures of movie heroes like Thor and Batman or you want to read about Japanese imported stars like Naruto, or you’d like to sample stories that are true to life or just plain weird. You can find the complete stories at the Galloway Library.