YALSA 2016 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

That means that this is the tenth year that they've done this list! Awesome!

A couple of years ago I was invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults. I looked at the YALSA lists and realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of many!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I then decided to review them as I read (or reread) them, and I've been (very slowly) doing so since December 2013. I've so far written reviews of 39 of the now 100 title long list. At my current rate I will finish in about four years.

This page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2016. Here's the full list of nominations from 20016, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Before this list had been released I had read 0.6 of the entries (vol. 1 of Lumberjanes and the first issue of Squirrel Girl).

Also, how is Giant Days not even on the long list?

Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova.

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown.

Lumberjanes vol. 1-2 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, and Brooke Allen.

Ms. Marvel vol. 2-3 by G. Willow Wilson, Jacob Wyatt, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa, and Elmo Bondoc.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson.

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson.

Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia.

A Silent Voice vol. 1-3 by Yoshitoki Oima.

Trashed by Derf Backderf.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol. 1-2 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson.

2015 Reading

In 2015 I read 500 graphic novels. Yes that is insane. I read some good stuff, and I also read a lot of crap.

What did I count as a graphic novel? Well, I was kind of haphazard to be honest.

Things that counted:

• Gen13 Bootleg: Grunge: the Movie - It only collects three issues.
• Tell Me Something by Jason - It's only like 48 pages long.
• The Viz 2015 sampler
• Image Firsts Compendium Vol. 1 - A bunch of #1s. I think these are literally just the $1 issues with the staples cut off and bound together.
• Costume Quest: Invasion of the Candy Snatchers - The digital version I have is 59 pages, which includes a bunch of pages which aren't comics.
• Things I had read in previous years and reread in 2015.
• Station 16 - Only 54 pages long.
• Books I read digitally (on Hoopla or otherwise).
• Collections of comic strips. - Just Cul de Sac I think.

Things that didn't count:

• Single issues that made up a storyline that have been collected. - Mostly lots of old X-Men comics.
• Island - The anthology that Brandon Graham puts out. It's a magazine?
• Other single issues that were pretty big. - Marvel Super-Hereos #2 Summer Special from 1991 claims to be 80 pages long on the cover. (It is terrible by the way.)
• Prestige format things that were 40-60 pages or so long. - JLA/WildCATs, some Sabertooth thing, some other stuff.
• Webcomics I read online.
• Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's - A bunch of this is comic strips, but I decided not enough was.
• The volume of the Authority I read because it had an annual and a story that weren't collected in The Authority by Warren Ellis/Mark Millar collections.

Things I read that collected other things but only counted as one thing:

• Essential Marvel and DC Showcase Presents volumes. Collect various Masterworks/Archives, but only count as one each.
• BPRD: Plague of Frogs Omnibus collect three smaller volumes, but I only counted once.
• etc.

The 500 does include both manga and non-manga , and here's the breakdown.

As you can see I read far more non-manga (441) than manga (59). If you look at the monthly stats you'll see that while I started fairly strong in regards to manga (11 read in January), I soon dropped off (5 read October-December, none read in June!).

The overwhelmingly amount of manga that I read (37!) were published by Viz. Second place was Tokyopop, who haven't published anything new since 2011!

Manga I read were very heavily series based. Of the 37 published by Viz that I read, 24 of them were 20th Century Boys. All six of the Tokyopop titles were King of Thorn.

For non-manga I read far too many Marvel comics.

The publishers from whom I read ten or more titles were

Marvel: 175

Dark Horse: 45

Image: 38

Boom: 21

DC: 20

Wildstorm*: 15

Vertigo: 13

IDW: 12

Valiant: 10

"Other" consists of every publisher from whom I read only one book. 

17 of Boom's titles were Irredeemable/Incorruptible (and I read all of those in January/February. Boom and Marvel were almost on par for the first two months).

If you include Wildstorm and Vertigo with DC they would have 48 books and be the second largest publisher.

* Wildstorm is kind of a special case, since I counted things that had been published under other imprints for them. Two volumes of Gen:13 Bootleg were published by Wildstorm when they were at Image. The volumes of Stormwatch and The Authority I read (that reprinted work originally published by Wildstorm) I counted as Wildstorm, even though they were printed by DC. The New 52 Stormwatch was set in the mainstream DC universe, so they were included in DC's number.

Here's a chart (with some terrible colours, thanks Google...) showing how much of each publisher I read each month. This combines the manga and non-manga lists, so Dark Horse gains 3 books, while Fantagraphics, DC, and NBM (not on this list) gain 1 each. Viz moves into 4th place, and DC is now tied with Boom. Fantagraphics also joins the "10 books" club.

I read the most graphic novels in September (61), when my goal was two a day, and the fewest (13) in July when I read a bunch of non-comic books I guess.

YALSA Top Ten GNs 2012: Zahra's Paradise

Zahra's Paradise
Written by Amir. Illustrated by Khalil.
Published by First Second (2011)

As of this moment I have read 482 graphic novels this year. Yes, that is a completely absurd number. Yes, I am insane.

The perhaps more interesting number is "1". That is the number of graphic novels I have failed to finish this year. Considering the quality of some of the stuff I have finished, that there was only one graphic novel I didn't finish seems to indicate that it was truly terrible. Except it wasn't. The book in question was fine, I just couldn't face reading any more gothic literature after it being chosen as that month's genre for my book club.

However, if I wasn't reading it because it was on a YALSA top ten graphic novels for teens list (and for some reason I'm trying to read them all) I never would have finished Zahra's Paradise.

The plot at first claims to be about a mother finding her son after the the political protests which happened in Iran in 2009, and there are places where the book seems to be from her point of view, but for the most part it seems to be about her other son. Of course, it doesn't help that both characters are complete ciphers and that we learn basically nothing about them, their feelings (beyond "this situation is not good" in regards to the arrests after the protest), or their interests. The missing brother is better developed, but at the same time the book takes a strangely long amount of time telling us about how much he loves ice water. I'm also really not fond of the main young female character, who seems both politically active (helping to uncover government secrets), and weirdly naive.

Of course, this book tends to take a long time to tell you anything. It is densely written, and almost every page is filled to bursting with words. In some comics this is fine, but here it really seemed like I was slogging through dialogue and character's thoughts that didn't add very much to the story. I think this demonstrates Amir's background as a journalist, since overwriting comics can definitely be an issue for those coming to the medium from more prose heavy ones. (Show don't tell!) Despite the general wordiness of this comic, it also seems to leave out a lot of background information that would help people (especially young people) make sense of what's going on (and why).

Another problem I had concerning the writing was the number of foreign words used in this book. That's a pretty common thing to see, and it's normally not that big of a deal, but despite having footnotes translating some of the words and _two_ glossaries there were still words and cultural references the meaning of which I had no idea. (Though admittedly, reading the glossaries probably gives you the best context for Iran's political system.)

In comparison to the writing, the art by Khalil is actually pretty good. I don't think I ever had problems following what was going on, and I appreciated the hand lettering (which I assume he also did, nobody else is credited). The combination of the art and lettering styles reminded me of old Mad Magazines, which is a little disconcerting when you consider the content of Zahra's Paradise. There are also some pages that I think look really great (see below), but more in the way that political cartoons do, making me wonder where most of the artist's experiences lie.

I can understand why this graphic novel made it onto the YALSA list: it was fairly topical at the time, it exposes people to other cultures and ways of life, and its plot is centred around a young person. But, I don't think it manages to provide enough context for people to understand the whys of the story, and fails at making the characters seem human enough to care about. If you want to read a graphic novel dealing with Iran's political climate you should read Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, and if you want to find out more about the 2009 political unrest in Iran, well, there's always the Wikipedia article.

YALSA Top Ten GNs 2011: Ghostopolis

Ghostopolis
Written and illustrated by Doug TenNapel.
Published by Graphix (2010)

Ghostopolis is about a city for dead people. Not just ghosts live there, but also skeletons, mummies, (mummys?), giant bugs, goblins, and other weird folk. Garth, a living boy, accidentally gets sucked into Ghostopolis when an agent of the Supernatural Immigration Task Force accidentally zaps him there (along with a skeleton horse). He has to deal with being a living boy trapped in this world for the dead, while people back on Earth desperately try to get to Ghostopolis and save him.

Doug TenNapel is the creator of Earthworm Jim, a video game that I enjoyed playing for the SNES a long time ago (I also really dug the cartoon and can probably still sing the theme song). He's also produced an almost surprising number of graphic novels (over ten). But more importantly, he's a conservative Christian, which has more or less caused me to stay away from his work in general.

That was not always the case, as I bought his first graphic novel Creature Tech when it was originally released (and before I realized he was Christian), and for the most part I enjoyed it's weirdness. Except... Generally I don't think a book or comic or whatever can be ruined by a single page, but for Creature Tech I made an exception. The final page (and it's Christian message) really ruined that book for me. I don't care if you write a story about the Shroud of Turin as a magic object, but I'd prefer if it was just that, and not a symbol of religious power or something.

Anyway, back to Ghostpolis. TenNapel is a good artist, and I can definitely see how a comic filled with mummy warriors, sentient dinosaur skeletons, werewolves, and gross bug monsters would definitely appeal to kids. Even I think they're pretty cool looking.

But, the story itself has some problems.

The first is the bad guy. He's convinced that Garth is out to get him, and so spends his time tracking him down and attacking him. Of course, if he hadn't done this Garth would have gone back home and never encountered him. This isn't necessarily a problem with the plot, it's more that the bad guy is just dumb.

The second is a larger problem that is pretty common in fiction (though apparently not common enough for me to find on TVtropes): a competent female is paired with an incompetent male. (I didn't just make this trope up right?) Frank Gallows is the agent who sent Garth to the spirit world, he is kind of a total screw up, gets fired from his job, and is generally bad at everything. His ex-fiance is Claire Voyant, who is capable and competent and built a teleportation device and for some reason gets back together with Frank. There's a lack of representation of characters who aren't white and male (or a bug) in general, so this kind of sticks out.

There's also a message about something at the end (and the story put a little too much emphasis on people having children for my taste), but overall the story is fine. Of course, there are the "heavy-handed Christian overtones" that I didn't even pick up on. Looking into it more, apparently in the part where I thought everyone was getting transported to another dimension/planet to be reborn as aliens, they are actually going to Heaven. Dang, my version is totally better.

There are also some subplots that aren't fully developed, plot holes, and the ending seems somewhat sudden and random. The more I write about this book the worse it seems to be, but kids probably won't care that much. It has skeleton dinosaurs and monsters! (Though I'm not sure how much it would appeal to teens...)

YALSA top ten GNs 2013: The Silence of Our Friends

The Silence of Our Friends
Written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos. Illustrated by Nate Powell.
Published by First Second (2012)

I actually kind of hate comics like this. Not because they're bad, but just because they remind me of how horrible people are. And yeah, sure, sometimes it's good to be reminded, but I guess I already think people are horrible so much of the time.

The Silence of Our Friends is set in 1960s Texas which, if you were unaware, is super racist. The story focuses on two families: one white and one black and...I don't know if it's even worth explaining. People are racist, the white family tries to become friends with the black family, people are racist, there's a civil rights protest where the police shoot at people a bunch, people are racist, there's a trial where black people are accused of shooting at the cops, people are racist, etc. People were horrible, though not everyone was horrible. Also, people were horrible in different ways. Maybe some hope. The end.

I dunno. Nate Powell's art was pretty nice I guess, but while I can appreciate his art and understand that other people really like it, I've never found it that appealing. I understand why this is on an American list for best graphic novels for teens, because it is important that people (especially young people) learn about what happened in the past (or they are doomed to repeat it, etc.), but I guess I'd rather just read comics about giant robots beating each other up. I guess that is the way in which I am horrible.

Olympia Timberland Library

I recently went to Olympia for the Olympia Zine Fest, and the Olympia Zine Librarians (un)conference. Both were fun events!

A talk about zines and the (un)conference were both held in the Olympia branch of the Timberland Regional Library. The library wasn't that big, but it did have a pretty impressive (and much loved) zine collection. Awesome : )

YALSA top ten GNs 2013: A Flight of Angels

A Flight of Angels
Conceived and illustrated by Rebecca Guay. Written by Holly Black, Bill Willingham, Alisa Kwitney, Louise Hawes, and Todd Mitchell.
Published by Vertigo (2011)

Rebecca Guay is an artist who I mostly know from her Magic: The Gathering cards. Her cards have a pretty specific style, and it's one that I enjoy.

Despite this, I don't think I've ever read any of her comic work. In fact, I had no idea she even had comic work until just now when I looked it up. And while seeing that she drew the Black Orchid Vertigo series doesn't really surprise me, it did seem a bit strange that she drew a Green Lantern comic (though that specific Green Lantern comic seems like it might fit her style fairly well).

While it seems obvious now, I had not expected A Flight of Angels to feel like a throwback to the earlyish days of Vertigo.  For a long time Vertigo (the imprint that published this comic) was best known for Sandman and Sandman like things (e.g. fantasy stuff about stories). This was no doubt helped by the fact that Sandman was their biggest seller, Neil Gaiman has a huge following, and that after Sandman ended there were a plethora of spinoff series such as The Dreaming, Lucifer, and so forth. But at the time Vertigo also put out a lot of (at least vaguely) similar titles, to various degrees of success. Eventually Vertigo shed this perception, and now they're known for...uhm, I dunno. Publishing lots of different stuff that doesn't sell that well?

A Flight of Angels is a series of short stories about angels in various settings, with a framing sequence set in some vague fantasy world. There are angels in the garden of Eden, angels in modern day cities, angels in a fairytale version of olden days Russia, angels in Victorian England, and angels in Heaven. For the most part I didn't care. The stories range from "that was pretty okay" to "I forgot that was even in this book".

However, I suppose the stories aren't really the main selling point here, that would be the Guay's art. It is not my favourite comic book art ever, but at the same time I can see it being the favourite of someone else. All of the art in this volume is painted by Guay, and she changes styles between the various stories. Each style manages to effectively capture the feel of the story it's illustrating. Some of the individual panels are also really nice, but for whatever reason they didn't really stick in my memory.

One final complaint: the lettering in the story set in Russia features Cyrllic characters used instead of English language ones. I find this annoying (mostly because I actually know the Cyrllic alphabet). This story also used other...questionable fonts, which surprised me considering the book was lettered by Todd Klein, but I guess everyone has off days.

If you like the sort of Vertigo fantasy stuff I mentioned earlier, you would probably enjoy this book. I didn't. That's not to say I don't enjoy Vertigo fantasy stuff. I loved Sandman, and it's one of the reasons I still read and love comics. But I could never get into most of the spinoffs and related titles, and A Flight of Angels seems as though it could easily be one of the ones I didn't enjoy.