Novelists Drawn to Graphic Novels

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on February 25, 2006 Sign up now!

By Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 2/25/2006

Bookslut Blogger Jessa Crispin (l.) and new graphic novelist Jonathan Ames at NYCC

Mainstream prose novelists continue to migrate to comics, bringing new audiences to the medium. At the New York Comic-con, both Marvel and DC Comics announced deals that will likely continue that trend.

Young Adult fantasy writer Tamora Pierce (Alanna: The First Adventure, Wild Magic) will write a series featuring the White Tiger, a female superhero, for Marvel. Pierce is a self-proclaimed geek who grew up reading comics like the Daughters of the Dragon, featuring its pair of female bounty-hunters. The artist on the White Tiger series has not been announced, but it will sport covers by fan favorite David Mack (Kabuki).

Over at Vertigo, novelist and performer Jonathan Ames (I Love You More Than You Know) will be writing his first graphic novel, The Alcoholic, with artist Dean Haspiel (The Quitter). The project is described in the release as the exploration of the heart of a struggling writer, just coming off a doomed romance. Ames was featured at the Vertigo panel on Friday, and his own description was hilarious. Ames said like most of his books, The Alcoholicwill be based on his own life, and will recount some of the crazier episodes while he was drinking. "I like cliffhangers, with the hero in trouble at the end. I used to go on real benders—I don't do that anymore. But when you go on bender you never know what's going to happen."

At the Vertigo Panel, executive editor Karen Berger also announced that novelist Mat Johnson, author of the novels Drop and Hunting in Harlem and winner of the 2004 Hurston/Wright legacy Award, is writing Incognegro, a graphic novel set amid the lynching and racist violence of the 1920s Jim Crow South. Johnson, who was also at the panel, said the book is a noir crime mystery, based on true stories about racial spying by fair-skinned blacks. The plot focuses on a black protagonist who decides to pass for white and travel to the racist South to solve a lynching mystery. This is Johnson's first original graphic novel and his second project for Vertigo. He also worked on Papa Midnite from the Hellblazer series.