DC Comics calls them graphic novels. Sounds like a decent read, but it's still the same pulp that was forbidden in my childhood home. Go read a book, as simple as that, and if only I could have said, But, mammy, it's a graphic novel. That would've gotten me a sharp shot to the skull.
Now comes Karen Berger, high and mighty of DC Comics. She's after getting teenage girls to read comic books, what with teenage girls representing a vast untouched market. No superheroes for our young ladies, no indeed. Ms. Berger is going to release a series of comics that "honors that intelligence and assertiveness and that individuality." Marketing gurus have taken note that American teens are obsessed with manga. At our local high school, there's a club for manga lovers. Sadly, it's affiliated with geekdom, and the so-called 'normal' kids will have nothing to do with it. I'd suggest to Ms. Berger that it's a fractured market.
She's not needing my advice, though. No, Ms. Berger has gone to Alloy Marketing for help in promoting the new line. Remember Alloy? The same marketing clan that put together the plagiarized novel and said it was written by a teenaged girl who got admitted to Harvard? That little dust-up didn't scare them away from the publishing industry at all, now, did it? At any rate, the many tentacles of Alloy Marketing will ensnare a wide audience of teenaged girls for DC Comics, plugging the picture books along with the rest of the merchandise in their Delia's catalog. And there'll be the ever-popular website, where comic reading girls can interact.
It won't be long before literary agents are hopping on the bandwagon, letting writers of YA fiction know that they are actively seeking comic books...er, graphic novels. It looks to be a hot, hot market, especially because mothers these days don't seem so inclined to vet their daughters' choice of reading material. Is there a mother out there any more who would say no to the comic book, and tell her little darling to go read a real book?
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