August Literary Holidays

August may have few nationally acknowledged holidays, but if you appreciate literature I’ve got a few things you can celebrate.

Kicking off the month we have National Book Lover’s Day taking place on August 9th. On this day celebrate by enjoying the smell of books, visit the library, drop literary references into casual speech, or just enjoy a favorite book.  Here are a couple book-themed books to help with the day:

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi is the author’s memoir from her time in Iran when she started an underground book club with seven girls reading western books outlawed by the government.

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine depicts an alternative history where the Great Library of Alexandria still exists and it is illegal to own books.

Wordless Comics

In the influential graphic novel Understanding Comics, creator Scott McCloud defines comics as:

“Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”

Notice that this definition does not include any specific mention of comics requiring words in order to be considered comics. Words, sure, fit under the generously vague “other images” category, but, at their most unadorned, comics simply need images put together in a particular order to be comics.

These “wordless comics” still require reading, just of a different sort. Images, on a spectrum of realistic to abstract, are associated with each other and meaning is made, just as with interpreting letters and words. Wordless comics use “silence” to their advantage by necessitating a closer reading of the colors, backgrounds, moods, layouts, line-work, and body language of the characters.

Avengers Spoiler Alert: Andy Serkis is playing WHO?

Ms. Marvel, White Wolf, Mantis, Drax, Falcon, Peter Dinklage as Pip the Troll!… Just when you thought the burgeoning cast of characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe couldn’t get any more crowded, Hollywood Insider has gained access to leaked scripts for an as-yet-untitled Avengers movie due out in April 2020 that reveal a veritable avalanche of new characters, and a stunning new merger of beloved comics franchises.

Comics Anthologies

Sequential art is a very flexible storytelling medium. Styles range from serialized or one-shot stories, published as individual comics issues and larger graphic novels, to very short comic strips and political cartoons. A favorite comics type of mine is the thematic comics anthology.

Anthologies tend to highlight stories from up-and-coming creators, creators from under-represented groups (including #ownvoices stories), and often feature supposedly “less marketable” subject matter. They are generally short stories of a few pages each, not the typical 22-page or longer comics story. They are sometimes financed outright by traditional publishers, but nowadays the trend seems to be moving towards crowdfunding.

Check out these Comics Anthologies

Own Voices Comics

#ownvoices is a social media hashtag, first suggested on Twitter by Corinne Duyvis in September 2015 as a tool “to recommend kidlit about diverse characters written by authors from that same diverse group”. It is related to, and overlaps with, the “We Need Diverse Books” movement/non-profit organization. As a tool and a movement, #ownvoices can be used to describe any marginalized group within any genre of any art form; it is purposefully unrestrictive.

Try out these #ownvoices comics in The Seattle Public Library collection, where the creators (writer[s]) or artist[s]) share a marginalized identity with a protagonist:

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew

The Eisner Award winning graphic novel from Singaporean-based Malaysian creator Sonny Liew tells the fictional story of Singaporean comics creator Charlie Chan Hock Chye, whose life and art parallel and evolve alongside the actual history of modern Singapore.