Your Tour Guide on the Information Superhighway

I’m not a huge comic book fan, but there is one that I own that is really meaningful to me. It’s called Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco. I lived in Bosnia for 3 years, and this graphic novel, while not pleasant to read, does a fantastic job explaining the war in Eastern Bosnia. Joe Sacco has written several other graphic novels about war zones – one called Palestine, another called Footnotes from Gaza, and several more about Bosnia. He’s a journalist as well as a comic artist.

When I set out this morning to assess our library’s collection in regards to comics, I was delightfully surprised! Our amazing Zeta collection of children and young adult books has a wide variety of comics and graphic novels. If you do a keyword search in BearCat for “Comic books, strips, etc.” you will come up with a wonderful list of comics and graphic novels located in the Baylor Libraries. Here are a few that I’ve chosen to highlight. Some in this list are reference works and scholarly studies on comics.

Aoki, Keith. Bound by Law?: Tales from the Public Domain. New expanded ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.

Burgan, Michael. Frankenstein. Minneapolis: Stone Arch Books, 2008.

Garrett, Greg. Holy Superheroes!: Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels, and Film. Rev. and expanded ed. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

Lent, John A. Comic Books and Comic Strips in the United States Through 2005: An International Bibliography. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2006.

Nakazawa, Keiji. Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima. San Francisco, Calif: Last Gasp of San Francisco, 2004.

Pawuk, Michael. Graphic Novels: A Genre Guide to Comic Books, Manga, Andmore. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2007.

Pendleton, Jeff. The Story of Dublin Dr Pepper: Dr Pepper, Texas. Limited ed. [Dublin, Tex: Dublin Dr Pepper, 2007.

Sacco, Joe. Palestine: #1. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 1993.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Thoreau, Henry David. Thoreau at Walden. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Weiner, Robert G. Marvel Graphic Novels and Related Publications: An Annotated Guide to Comics, Prose Novels, Children’s Books,articles, Criticism and Reference Works, 1965-2005. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, 2008.