Publishers

by Emily Barney and Maura McKee

Besides needing to be aware of major sources for collection development purposes, it's important to understand the "structure" behind comic book series, because many readers will. Publishers, especially for comic book titles, should be an easy field you can use in the catalog to search and retrieve lists of similar items.

Many of these materials are published by a short list of major distributors. If you're not familiar with comic books, you will find very useful information organized about them under the Wikipedia Category for US Comic book publishing companies, especially the DC or Marvel sections. See our Websites post for more examples of Wikipedia pages by genre.

Since many fans will follow characters across many titles within these publishers - and perhaps refer to them as fictional "worlds," like "Superman is in the DC Universe," it's a good idea to have a general understanding, especially for superhero comic books, which characters are published by which groups.

These lists are by no means comprehensive, but they'll give you a good start.

• Major Comic Book Publishers
  
• DC - http://www.dccomics.com/
• Vertigo - http://www.dccomics.com/vertigo/
• Wildstorm - http://www.dccomics.com/wildstorm/
• Marvel - http://www.marvelcomics.com/
• Image Comics - http://www.imagecomics.com/
  
• Dark Horse - http://www.darkhorse.com/
  

• Major Graphic Novel Publishers
  
• Fantagraphics - http://www.fantagraphics.com/
• Drawn & Quarterly - http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/index.php
• Top Shelf Productions - http://www.topshelfcomix.com/

• Major Manga Publishers -
  
• TokyoPop - http://www.tokyopop.com/
  
• Viz Media - http://www.viz.com/
  
• for more, see the list of Manga Distributors in English on Wikipedia here

• Major Comics/Cartoons Publishers - (many mainstream publishers as well)
  
• Fantagraphics - http://www.fantagraphics.com/ (they do graphic novels & comics)
  
• Andrew McMeels - http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/cartoon_books.html
• Archie Comics - http://www.archiecomics.com/
  

Websites

by Emily Barney and Maura McKee

These websites are great resources for collection development, for finding the best ways to describe the materials, and for finding reviews and other information that can be used to share the resources with our patrons. If you're aware of other good websites, feel free to leave more addresses in the comments!

No Flying No Tights
http://www.noflyingnotights.com/index2.html
This popular website is perfect because it reviews Graphic Novels for teens.They even have a “core lists” section for librarians and teachers that want to start developing a collection.

Columbia University's Graphic Novels Page
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eguides/graphic_novels/index.html
This website includes information about their own collection, including their collection development policy, and links to many more resources and guides. Their website provides both general-level information that would be interesting to fans and more specific information useful to librarians or anyone doing academic research in this field.

Gilles Poitras' http://www.koyagi.com
Includes a great "Librarian's Guide to Anime and Manga" and list of "Recommended Manga" as well.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia can be a wonderful source of information about these materials, often very well organized and documented with links to publishers, awards, and other relevant websites. Of course it would be wise to verify information from a more authoritative source, but the breadt h and depth of information available through these pages makes it a wonderful place to start. Here are a few of the applicable category pages where you can browse the sorts of information you can find on individual pages:

• USA Comic Books - there are separate categories by publisher, with amazingly detailed pages giving much more information about characters and history than you'll find even in the reference books. Here's are the top ones:
  
• DC Comics
• Marvel Comics

• Comic Strips (this category is primarily for "funnies" style comics)
  
• Artists
• Awards
• Genres

• Graphic Novels - less useful than the Comic Book categories, but may grow in the future
• Artists & Authors

• Manga
  
• Artists
  
• Awards
• Magazines
• Publishers
• Websites

• Webcomics - This is a hard category to quantify or review, since it is constantly changing, but the Wikipedia entry is as good a place as any to begin to familiarize yourself with them.

Awards

by Maura McKee and Emily Barney

Graphic novels have won awards in many categories, including a Pulitzer Prize for Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, a memoir of his father’s survival of the holocaust.¹ There are also many awards dedicated just to comic books by genre or for achievement in specific fields.

The Hahnl Library's Comic Book Awards Almanac includes a glossary that explains the differences between these awards, from festival awards to nominations, polls and special selection awards.

You can find more information about the different awards on specific pages on Wikipedia including "Comic Book Awards," "Anime and Manga Awards" and "Award-Winning Graphic Novels"

Examples of awards given in this field:

• Eisner Award - FAQ on comic-con international website
  
• Given for creative achievement in American comic books; named in honor of comic book writer and artist Will Eisner

• Harvey Awards - http://www.harveyawards.org/
  
• This series, named after writer artist Harvey Kurtzman, includes awards for achievement in writing, art, humor, letterer, colorist, new talent, etc. with comic books.
  

• Ignatz Awards - http://www.spxpo.com/ignatz.shtml
  
• Named for the character in the classic comic strip Krazy Kat by George Herriman this is a festival prize that recognizes outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning with special prizes in ten different categories.
  

Examples of other award winning graphic novels:

American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang won the 2007 Michael L. Prinz Award for literary excellence in young adult literature. The novel interweaves three different stories:

one is a folk tale of "The Monkey King", another is the story of a second-generation immigrant named Jin Wang, and the third is about Danny, a boy with a Chinese cousin named Chin-Kee. The book's climax merges all of these stories together.

More information about the author and the series is available at:
http://www.humblecomics.com/

Jeff Smith's Bone is the longest-running self-published series so far and has won more awards than any other comic in history. It began with the whimsical adventures of Phone Bone and developed into an intricate world with monsters and dragons waging war against the forest creatures under the leadership of a cow-racing grandmother. It was released between 1991 and 2004, as 55 irregularly-released issues that were printed in 9 individual volumes and eventually gathered into one major volume, pictured here. This series has won 44 awards in America and around the world, including 10 Eisner Awards and 11 Harvey Awards.²

More information about the artist and series is available at http://www.boneville.com/

Harvey Pekar and his wife Joyce Brabner wrote Our Cancer Year as he dealt with the discovery of his lymphoma and its treatment. The book was illustrated by Frank Stark, an award-winning professor of art at the University of Missouri. This volume won the 1995 best graphic album Harvey Award. Pekar had already won the American Book Award in 1987 for his American Splendor series. Pekar's life story -- including how he met and married Joyce Brabner, and how he experienced cancer and its treatment -- was made into an excellent film, American Splendor (2003).³

More information about the author and other graphic novels by him and his wife are available at http://www.harveypekar.com/

Linda Medley's Castle Waiting was in YALSA's 2007 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and Booklist's Top 10 Graphic Novels for Youth. It has also won 2 Harvey Awards and 7 Eisner awards, including the 1998 Best New Series Eisner Award. Medley began the series in 1996 and volume one was published in 2006. The series begins with a short retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, but once she has left for her happily ever after the castle becomes a refuge for marginal fairy tale creatures and characters, telling stories of unconventional convents and enterprising uses of the goose who laid the golden egg.

More information about the author and her book is available here: http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/medley/medley.html

Don Rosa's Life and Times of $crooge McDuck explains how the "richest duck in the world" won his fortune between 1877 and 1947. This historical fiction follows his adventures from Scotland to America and beyond to the African Transvaal, Australia, and the Klondike, encountering figures like Theodore Roosevelt. Published from April 1994 to February 1996, it won the 1995 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story and the 1995 Comic Buyers Guide Fan Awards for Favorite Comic Book

More information is available about the series on Don Rosa's "The IntroDUCKtion to the Life and Times of $crooge McDuck"

¹ Kakutani, Michiko. "Books of The Times; Rethinking the Holocaust With a Comic Book." New York Times. October 29, 1991
² "The History of BONE & Jeff Smith" http://www.boneville.com/bone/bone-history/
³ Kohn, Martin "Brabner, Joyce and Pekar, Harvey: Our Cancer Year" Literature, Arts & Medicine Database 14 April 2005 http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=383