Feature: Katherine Farmarlooks ahead to some of the graphic novels of 2007
Comics have a reputation of being not quite adult, not quite respectable, not really "art". Of course, this isn't true: comics and graphic novels are getting more and more exciting all the time, with new talents springing up every year while established creators keep bringing out new work to remind us how they became established in the first place. This year promises a fantastic crop from all over the world, both of brand new works and re-issues of timeless classics.
A sign of the rising fortunes of the medium is the number of conventional publishers who are catching on to the value of the graphic novel. Jonathan Cape is in the forefront of this trend: in 2007 they're bringing out new editions of two classics originally published by comics-focused publishers. Canadian cartoonist Seth tells a haunting tale of obsession and loneliness in It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken(May), while Joe Sacco, best known for his award-winning Palestine, uses his distinctive brand of incisive and deeply personal comics journalism to document events in the former Yugoslavia in Safe Area Gorazde(April). Aleksander Zograf deals with similar subject matter in Regards From Serbia(January), a new and fascinating title from Top Shelf Productions. Zograf lived in the Serbian town of Pancevo throughout the 1990s, which gave him a front row seat for the wars, and especially the NATO bombing of 1999; Regards From Serbiacollects his entire email correspondence during that period as well as all of his comic strips created during the Balkan wars. Meanwhile, Drawn & Quarterly bring us another tale from a war zone in the fictional Exit Wounds(May) from award-winning Israeli artist Rutu Modan. Exit Woundstells the story of a man discovering the truth about his estranged father's life after he apparently dies in a suicide-bomb attack.
Of course, graphic novels aren't all about war. James Kochalka's astonishing American Elfgets a second collection from Top Shelf in February. American Elfbegan as an experiment in artistic discipline: in the late 1990s Kochalka set himself the task of drawing a four-panel cartoon about his life every day, and he's stuck to it ever since. Kochalka records the small moments of which ordinary life is composed, not striving for a gag or attempting to create a storyline, but letting each moment speak for itself. His drawing style is minimal and sparse, sometimes tending to caricature, as in his depiction of himself as a long-eared, elf-like creature, but often witty and always charming.
But if small moments aren't your thing, you might prefer the swashbuckling fantasy of Dark Horse's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser(March), adapted by Howard Chaykin and Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy) from the classic sword and sorcery stories of Fritz Leiber, or the more modern but still fantastical God Save the Queen(DC/Vertigo, April) by Mike Carey (writer of Lucifer, Hellblazerand X-Men) and John Bolton (artist for The Books of Magic and Fables: 1001 Nights Of Snowfall). God Save the Queenmoves between the land of Faerie and contemporary London and looks set to be a brilliant addition to Carey and Bolton's already-impressive portfolios.
Speaking of impressive portfolios, the amazing British artist Bryan Talbot, probably best known for the masterly A Tale of One Bad Rat, is set to distinguish himself yet again with his forthcoming Alice in Sunderland(Jonathan Cape, February) which weaves many and diverse stories around the central thread of Lewis Carroll, Alice Liddell (the "original" Alice) and the city of Sunderland. Already bearing the imprimatur of the Carrollian scholar John Tufail, Alice in Sunderlandlooks like it's going to be a feast.
Finally, the American comics behemoth DC, owners of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and many, many more, have traditionally aimed their comics at boys and young men, but that seems set to change with the launch of Minx, their new line of graphic novels aimed at teenage girls. Titles planned for 2007 include The PLAIN Janes(the first title, to be released in May), Re-Gifters(June), and Good As Lily(August), but it's Andi Watson and Josh Howard's Clubbing(July), about a girl from London who solves mysteries, that I'm most looking forward to: Watson is one of the best comics creators working today, consistently producing moving and funny stories about utterly real characters.