Twenty-first-century Graphic Novels

Chapter 7 surveys the second graphic novel boom of the twenty-first century. Various factors lie behind the increase in sales: the high-profile film adaptations; the decreasing stigma surrounding comics and libraries’ investment in graphic novels as a way of encouraging younger readers, seen in the explosion of children’s and YA graphic novels; the artistic and literary prizes given to comics creators and graphic novels, not least where the genres of history and life-writing are concerned (Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is one of this chapter’s case studies); and the popularity of manga, which underscored the profitability of bookstores having distinctive sections dedicated to graphic novels. This chapter also considers the significance of the internet for distributing and selling long-form comics, focusing on Jeremy Love’s Bayou as the final case study. Far from replacing physical graphic novels, webcomics and print editions exist in symbiotic relationship, and new funding models have enabled a more diverse US comics scene than ever before.