NYT Magazine: Are Comics The New Mainstream Novels?

securitas writes "The New York Times Magazine cover story this week is a (typically) long feature about the rise of comic books and graphic novels into mainstream culture, with writer Charles McGrath (former editor of the Book Review) stating: 'Comic books are what novels used to be -- an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal ... perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit.' McGrath cites the mid-1980s birth of a movement that began and fizzled with Maus (Art Spiegelman), Love & Rockets (Hernandez Bros.) Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller). The current renaissance in graphic novels include non-fiction Palestine (Sacco), non-fiction Persepolis (Satrapi) which has sold 450,000 copies, Ghost World (Clowes), American Splendor (Pekar), Road to Perdition (Collins) and Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, which won the 2001 Guardian Prize for best first book and has sold 100,000 in hardcover. McGrath interviews Marjane Satrapi, Julie Doucet, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore, among others. The article also has a multimedia interactive feature with many of the graphic novelists (registration required) in the magazine article."

Comments

Re:Good Old New York Times

[Bearpaw]

After all, if people actually like it, it can't possibly be good.

There may be something to that. After all, lots of people like the New York Times.

Seriously though, the NYT is part of the subset of popular culture that appeals to people who like to look down on pop culture.

And as far as "Comic books are what novels used to be", that's about as meaningful as saying that "grey is the new black". Though, to be fair, they included a qualifier that gets them off scot-free: "... if the highbrows are right ...". When was the last time "the highbrows" were right?