#BookBingoNW2019: Comics

Comics is a magical and mysterious medium that can fill one or all of your Book Bingo card squares this summer! It’s up to you!

Take a look at this recent staff booklist of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Comics and Graphic Novels and maybe try out In Between, a collection of poetry comics by local creator Mita Mahato (and don’t forget to stop by the Ballard Branch where Mita will lead a graphic memoir workshop, Thursday, June 6^th @ 6pm).

For the hungry folks out there, maybe some Food-themed Comics & Manga is what you need in your life? Delicious in Dungeon (currently at 6 volumes of manga) is a dungeon-crawling adventure full of food, friends, and monsters (aka the food).

The Lambda Awards were just announced on June 3^rd, and the library has you covered with this list of finalists, including graphic novels. With On A Sunbeam, Tillie Walden (Spinning) interweaves a beautiful tale of moody space exploration, with an earthly recollection of two girls falling in love at boarding school.

If you’re a short story reader, then comics anthologies are for you! Puerto Rico Strong is a recent anthology published to support disaster relief and recovery in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. With stories of survival, colonialism, diaspora, and science fiction by Puerto Rican comics creators, there’s something for everyone!

Looking for an experience that is more local and unique? Try visiting the Zapp Zine Collection at the Central Library to peruse or read a few of the over 30,000 self-published and small press zines and minicomics!

Browse the comics or graphic novels tags on our Shelf Talk blog for many more recommendations!

For more ideas for books to meet your Summer Book Bingo challenge, follow our Shelf Talk #BookBingoNW2019 series or check the hashtag #BookBingoNW2019 on social media. Need a Book Bingo card? Print one out here or pick one up at your Library. Book bingo is presented in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures.

~ posted by Mychal L.

OverDrive Comics and ‘The Best We Could Do’

The Seattle Public Library has physical comics for children, teens, and adults available for checkout in all of our 27 locations, as well as through our mobile services. We also have comics available through our Hoopla Digital service. But did you know, amongst all of the mysteries, memoirs, and literary fiction e-books, that we also have approximately 1,700 “comic and graphic works” in our OverDrive collection?! This collection includes popular kids comics like the Narwhal and Jelly series, relatable webcomics such as “Sarah’s Scribbles,” award winners like Kindred… and even the 2019 Seattle Reads selection The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui!

Narwhal’s Otter Friend: Narwhal and Jelly Series, Book 4 by Ben Clanton
This is the fourth book of the Narwhal and Jelly aquatic graphic novel adventure series for early readers! While Narwhal enthusiastically accepts newcomer Otter into the friend-pod, Jelly reacts somewhat jelly-ously… (Clanton, a local author, won the Washington State Book Award for the first book in this series.)

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.