Over the past couple of years, I have noticed graphic novels are earning commercial interest in Australia. All of the major bookstores in the Sydney CBD have a graphic novel section, whether it’s a shelf in science-fiction, or an entire wall, awkwardly positioned between erotic fiction and romance.

While working as an in-house book designer, I was briefed to design the cover for a Jodi Picoult novel, The Tenth Circle. An international bestseller, Picoult often uses the technique of narrating each chapter from the perspective of a different character, and setting each chapter in a different typeface to distinguish between the different voices. The Tenth Circle takes this technique a step further – one of the main characters, Daniel, is a graphic novelist, so his ‘voice’ is shown as the graphic novel he’s writing as the story unfolds. If Jodi Picoult—who can shift 80–100,000 copies of a book in Australia alone—is referencing graphic novels, then they’ve certainly hit the mainstream.

I was excited by the prospect of playing with elements of the graphic novel in the cover design, then surprised that this was met with absolute opposition by the marketing and sales departments (truthfully, not that surprised). They didn’t want this feature to be made a feature of – there was concern that the graphic novel element would turn off the ‘Jodi’ demographic. A frustrating aspect of working in commercial publishing is the perceived need to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to sell the maximum number of books. This isn’t specific to this publisher, or even to Australia. I’ve looked at overseas editions and none of them have tackled the graphic novel element on the cover. (If you look closely I did manage to sneak it in, but it’s certainly not a feature).

Asking around, the reaction from readers and booksellers about the inclusion of the graphic novel sections was strongly divided—people either loved it or hated it. This reaction fascinated me. Why are some people so violently opposed to the use of graphic elements in fiction? Why are comics and graphic novels considered inferior literature?

Graphic novels are not the focus of my research, but I think they provide an interesting point of departure for examining word–image relationships in contemporary fiction for two main reasons:

1. Graphic novelists and enthusiasts have long fought for validation and recognition of their art form in a print culture which values word over image, a problem currently faced by novelist using graphic elements in their work;

2. The interplay between word and image in these multi-modal books is complex: the words don’t simply reinforce the pictures and the pictures don’t merely reflect the words – they combine to form a new language that requires reading of both word and image to make sense. I argue many works of contemporary fiction incorporating graphic elements achieve the same effect.

But let’s go back a step:
What is a graphic novel?

Here are three examples from popular graphic novels. The far right page from Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is what most people expect a graphic novel to look like: rectangular framed scenes; bold, primary colours; speech bubbles and; men in tights. However, at the time of publication (1986) this innovative work changed the way people read, talked about and envisioned graphic novels. The other two examples are perhaps more artistic (or less ‘comic’ in style) than most would expect, but equally considered graphic novels.

To qualify as a graphic novel, the work needs to be presented as what renowned graphic novelist Art Spiegelman calls “sequential art”; action takes place in frames, which need to be read in sequence. The size and composition of the frames gives a sense of passing time. For this reason, I’d argue that graphic novels are more closely linked to cinema than literature, a point supported by the recent proliferation of graphic novels being adapted as films: most people would be aware of film adaptations of Batman, X-Men, Sin City and maybe even Ghost World or American Splendour, but also Tim Burton’s From Hell was derived from a graphic novel, as were Road to Perdition and A History of Violence. That these graphic novels are being adapted to film is arguably a combination of factors: the largest movie going demographic is 15-18 year old boys; the stories are already in a cinematic form with consideration of action and movement; there is great potential to serialise them and create marketable spin offs. But also, and more importantly, there is now a generation of adults who grew up in a time where graphic novels are considered by many to be a legitimate cultural form, not just light entertainment for children.