Evan Narcisse and I will be co-hosting the first ever McNally Jackson Graphic Novel Book Club come Thursday at 7 PM. If you don’t know me, I’m Jessica, the store’s resident comics nerd (and the buyer for the graphic novel section). Evan doesn’t actually work at the bookstore; he’s a reporter on pop culture who stops in to attend events or chat with friends on the staff, and he and I usually go all motor-mouth fan-geeky talking about the most recent comics we’ve read and loved. We’d tossed out the idea of a graphic novel discussion group in moments of hyped-up enthusiasm before; at some point a couple months back, Evan was all “hey, really, why not?”
We settled on Alan Moore’s Watchmen for our first book with some trepidation. We aren’t sure yet whether we want to focus on classic or contemporary graphic novels, mainstream or alternative, capes and tights or navel-gazing artistes; it will depend on the mix of interests in the group. We didn’t want this first book to pigeonhole us in the minds of potential attendees. We also worried that this choice might brand us as just trendy and unimaginative.
But though both of us read a ton of contemporary comics, the truth is it’s kind of hard to think about anything BUT Watchmen these days. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a gargantuan movie adaptation coming out on Friday, and the trailer alone (attached to Dark Knight) pushed sales of the 23-year-old graphic novel through the roof. (Now Random House, which distributes Watchmen publisher DC Comics, feels the genre’s pain: despite sales of over 900,000 copies in the last months of 2008, Watchmen never showed up on the New York Times bestseller list, because graphic novels aren’t counted.)
In truth, Watchmen is both a great way in to the compelling literature that comics can be, and a reward for those who are well-versed in the tropes of the genre. Though I have my issues with the book (don’t worry, we’ll definitely be talking about them!) it’s undoubtedly a complex, layered work, with lots and lots of structures and themes to tease out. I only worry we’ll have trouble choosing what to fit into an hour-long discussion.
If you’re interested, whether or not you can attend our discussion at the bookstore, I recommend joining our book club Facebook group for updates and an ongoing discussion. I’ll be posting some suggested additional reading on Watchmen there, and possibly continuing the discussion if there are raging issues to be addressed.
If you can make it, Evan and I look forward to having you join us on Thursday at 7 PM for some fan-geeking out — that is, for some seriously heady literary discussion. Lucky us, when you love the books this much it’s all the same thing.
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