Contents May Be Graphic
I got off pretty easily last night when I said what I’m in the process of reading. Joel is pretty popular at the book club, so reading one of his books is an instant get-out-of-jail-free card. Besides, there was another issue far greater than my slacker ways. Graphic novels. Someone was talking about Alan Moore’s Watchmen.
It quickly became obvious there was something bordering on contempt for graphic novels among a large proportion of the group. I was a little shocked by that. The usual expectation is that science fiction / fantasy readers tend more toward open-mindedness, so to see the outright dismissal of graphic novels as being only for men who never grew up came as something of a surprise.
I suspect most people who have an interest in fantasy have at least once had someone call their preference escapism, or looked down on in some way as being somehow less worthy than mainstream or literary works. It saddened me a little to see it happen in a place where I would never have expected to find that attitude. I’ll be honest. I’ve never read a graphic novel. I’m thinking about giving it a go. I know a lot of people who enjoy them. Not all of them men, and not all of them clinging to a lost adolescence.
There’s nothing inherently inferior about any medium whether I like it or not.