Diamond Book Exhibitors and Reed Exhibits announced the first annual Graphic Novel Author Breakfast at this year's Book Expo in Los Angeles.
While the Book Expo has long sponsored author breakfasts, this is the first to focus on graphic novels. Hosted by Jeff Smith (Bone), guests include Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Art Spiegelman (Maus, Maus II), and Jeph Loeb. Tickets are available for the breakfast, to be held on May 31st from 8:00-9:00 in room 403A-B in the LA Convention Center.
Every mention of this discusses how graphic novels are an "emerging" field that is "gaining popularity." Huh? Okay, I may not know when Memorial Day is, but graphic novels have been around for nearly 30 years. In fact, Maus won the Pulitzer in 1992 and had been winning awards well before that, because I gave an award-winning speech on sequential art in the 7th or 8th grade and discussed Maus in it (I graduated highschool in 1992, so this would have had to be 1986 or so).
I discussed this over to Weird Ink, about how "the market" is usually behind the trends by at least a few years, but this is kind of ridiculous! It's great that graphic novels are finally being respected by the literary community, but (as usual) the literati is at least 25 years behind the curve.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
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