Available from:
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UK: Aurum Press: 1st edition, 2005
USA: Collins Design - 1st edition 2005, 2nd edition 2006
Finland: Otava - 1st edition 2007

Once stereotyped as the preserve of improbably dressed superhumans with world-saving tendencies, in recent years graphic novels have become one of today's most exciting art forms, taking on the world we live in and reflecting it back to us in a thousand different ways. All of human experience is here, from teenage girlfriends alienated in suburbia to a desperate housewife's search for passion, brought to life with insight, imagination and page-turning narrative. This is the perfect companion to the world of graphic novels, whether you're a novice uncertain where to start or an enthusiast eager to discover more. In a series of interlinked chapters, Paul Gravett introduces the masterpieces of the medium and helps readers explore its treasures, from the rich, mysterious textures of Neil Gaiman's Sandman to Marjane Satrapi's vivid memories of her Iranian childhood in Persepolis.

Note: This book is published in the USA as Graphic Novels: Everything You Need To Know. Same book, different title.

Anyone who wants a handle on that suddenly hot new format, the graphic novel, should seize upon this useful, incisive, intelligently arranged guide. Gravett analyzes 30 key graphic novels (“stories to change your life”) in generic or topical chapters that bring together, say, alternative comics products such as Maus and Jimmy Corrigan, or superhero standouts such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns . For readers inspired to investigate further, he follows each discussion of a particular book with selections from four similar graphic novels. Entire pages from the work under discussion appear, indicating its quality far better than a panel or two would. Gravett's analyses are concise and perceptive, and his introductory remarks in each chapter are knowledgeable. He has long been associated with the British alt-comics movement, which allows him to recommend a number of notable British and European graphic novels that likely would have been overlooked by a more American-centered book. Even the most well-versed comics fan will discover new treasures here, and newbies to the field may consider it indispensable.

Just finished a long look-see into the new comics-oriented book by Paul Gravett, Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know (which, inexplicably, goes by the sub-title Stories to Change Your Life on the cover only... the spine and title page have the "real" title). It's a fascinating new look at graphic novels, told in a way to appeal to non-comics fans and newcomers, plus those of us a tad more learned on that topic. Gravett is also the author of the Collins Design book, Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics.

It takes 30 popular GNs (ones with particular meaning to the author) and does in-depth coverage on each, with well-designed 2 page spreads. It treats each of the 30 with an "In Focus" feature and then a corresponding "Scene by Scene" page. These features are on 2-page spreads. Then it lists 4 more GNs that you may like if you liked the one you just read about in depth. For example, Watchmen takes you to Astro City, Marshal Law, Promethea and Planetary. Despite that example, the book's focus is decidedly NOT mainstream superhero comics. That's just ONE chapter. It focuses more on non-superhero books. The complete list of 30 - which you may or may not agree are key graphic novels - includes:

The Airtight Garage, Maus, The Dark Knight Returns, When the Wind Blows, Palomar, Watchmen, The Frank Book, My Trouble With Women, Cerebus, Scene of the Crime, The Nikopol Trilogy, A Contact With God, It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, From Hell, American Splendor, Black Hole, Palestine, Ghost World, Lost Girls, Buddha, Sin City, Strange Embrace, Barefoot Gen, Epileptic, Gemma Bovery, Corto Maltese, V For Vendetta, The Sandman, Locas and Jimmy Corrigan. Yes, some of them are multi-volume epics. Surprisingly, 2 of them, Lost Girls and Black Hole, had not been published in completed form by the time this came out. (Black Hole was published around the same time, albeit finished in it's serial version... Lost Girls comes out next summer, supposedly).

The entire book is nicely designed, full-color throughout. Although I may not agree with all the choices, it is a well-rounded selection and certainly a great primer for the uninformed. I'll let it to bigger minds than me to discuss the merits or lack thereof about this book, which I think, personally, is an impressive achievement in getting a basic understanding of graphic novels into the hands of the "rest" of the world. All in all, it talks about 150 GNs, and lists over a 100 more in the chapter intros of each section.

This is the third book I've purchased this year from Collins Design, the other ones being Manga: Masters of the Art, and Foul Play, the Art and Artists of the Notorious E.C. Comics. All 3 are vividly illustrated and crisply designed. I don't know what they'll be doing next, but I'll be looking for them in bookstores. Collins Design is a division of HarperCollins, and touts themselves as publishing "stunning, visual books which capture and illuminate the latest trends in Style and Pop Culture, Architecture and Interiors, Graphic Design and Art." With 3 major books in 1 year about comics and comic art, I'm sold. Graphic Novels may not be perfect... I'm sure a lot of people will quibble with the selections. But it's a beautifully designed and well-conceived treasure trove of a book which brings new understanding to what is fast becoming one of the more popular sections in mainstream bookstores. While some may argue that the term "graphic novel" is making a silk purse out of what has been regarded before as just a sow's ear, this book may help correct that misconception.

Thanks for having the publisher send me a copy of the Graphic Novels companion. I think it's terrific. Everything that ought to be there is there, and you've dealt fully and interestingly with all the ones I know about, and pointed the way to several I don't. I hope the book has a big success and becomes the standard work on the subject. Congratulations on a splendid book.

Graphic Novels is excellent and you should be proud of it. Overall, Great British Comics is the greater achievement, principally because GBC has the same number of pages to examine a much denser amount of material, with fearsome pressure to keep a sense of overall historical/sociological development/perspective. However, I think you did a superb job on GN, and I'm especially impressed with the 'mini-reviews' of each graphic novel, which, in a mere 100 words each, consistently capture the essence of the thing. And, as with GBC, there is plentiful evidence of your skills as a writer (I loved your description of Tom of Finland's stuff as 'short on plot, but long on erections'). I was particularly impressed with your theory that America's 1950s obsession with vengeful corpses might have been the collective conscience's 'warning that we cannot bury and forget the wartime inhumanities that we committed'.

Also, as with GBC, the cover was a perfect choice. Clowes's portrait of Theda is uncompromisingly a COMIC (no attempt to compete with photography or 'fine art', as would've been the issue if you'd chosen Windsor-Smith, McKean, Schuiten, etc). Yet it has the spark of authentic human life (emphatically unlike a cartoon that only symbolises/hints at humanity rather than embodying it). And Theda's stare is confrontational and self-assured, as if she's thinking, 'I know my value and I don't care if other people recognise it, but if you are able to recognise it, then you'll find me interesting' -  the message of the medium itself. The bow in her hair suggests a vestigial link with cutesy childhood, the mark on the cheek suggests damage, the eyes have seen more than they should have, the pylons and telephone wires in the background suggest a grim environment that fails to nurture its citizens. All very appropriate to many of the best graphic novels.

Your "In Focus" and "Following On From..." profiles are mostly very illuminating. Inevitably, in a book that presents so many different artistic sensibilities to a single reader with his/her own individual wavelength, some graphic novels will come across more readily than others. For example, because I have no difficulty getting onto Raymond Briggs's wavelength, I found the summary of When The Wind Blows unnecessarily over-explained, as though someone were patiently analysing an Aesop fable whose meaning is abundantly clear at a glance, whereas I could imagine the précis of Sandman leaving many readers no wiser as to the meaning of this hermetic, cliquey narrative. I also felt that there was a disproportionate amount of text about Hugo Pratt/Corto Maltese, as though a newspaper/magazine feature article had been shoehorned into the book.

These are quibbles, however. I was delighted overall, and there are now many more graphic novels that I want to investigate.

Thank you for the copy of Paul Gravett's book Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life. It was, indeed, a gratifying surprise to see Cerebus as one of the prime graphic novels to which other graphic novels are footnoted. From past experience I expected it to be the other way around. It is unfortunate that Gerhard isn't mentioned (as you can see I've developed a checklist-of-recurring-irritants-to-whinge-about over the years). Paul Gravett has certainly done yeoman's work over the last two decades in promoting the comic-book field in general and this latest effort is not exception. It makes my eyeballs ache just considering the parameters of the winnowing process he must've had to engage in just to bring it in under 200 pages and, of course, there's the two-fold staggering implications of that: a) that the book is incomplete and b) this is the last time in history it will be conceivable to try to make something like this exhaustive.

I had the same sensation walking around the newly renovated Midtown Comics in New York City last month - still mentally picturing myself as part of a stream and seeing up close that it's far more like a raging river at this point with nothing for it but to head for the rapid and hope for the best. Heading for the rapids isn't one of those things I thought of myself doing on the cusp of fifty but I don't seem to have much choice in the matter. All we can do is hope that there's an advantage to having a 6,000-page boat to navigate in and learn how to hold our breath for extended periods.

Thanks again for the book. It's certainly the largest item in the Cerebus Archive at this point.

PS Paul: a very handsome volume - I hope it does well for you. We could
certainly use a dozen more champions of the form like yourself, so KEEP WORKING!

At last! Paul Gravett's Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life boldly jettisons superheroes to zoom in on the less-documented history of 'graphic novels': grown-up tales that use comic formats to grapple with 'real life' issues such as love, angst, illness and politics rather than Dr Evil death rays. Die-hard fans of this fascinating genre may find Gravett's pass-notes approach a little ABC - each chapter boastes full-colour excerpts of key works such as Jimmy Corrigan, Sandman, Maus, etc. accompanied by 'Notice here how...' arrows. But if you've read and enjoyed the likes of Marjane Satrapi's Iranian memoir Persepolis and want to know where to go next, this book throws windows open on to fresh new worlds - and isn't that what comic books are all about?

Diverse attractions: For over a quarter of a century, the genre has been growing and changing. Miles Fielder asks Paul Gravett the big question: just what is a graphic novel?

Paul Gravett rather succinctly describes his book Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life as his 'Janet and John guide' to the art form. The coffee table-sized book include's a number of essays about various graphic novels genres - biographical, psychological, romantic, crime - plus a section designed to overcome negative preconceptions and osme suggested initial reading. The majority of the book, however, compirses colour spreads of complete pages from graphic novels annotated with explanatory footnotes on form, style and content.

'A lot of people are quite baffled by what a graphic novel is,' says Gravett, who has been promoting them as a writer, curator, lecturer and broadcaster for 20 years. 'In bookshops, there's a baffling array of stuff, from Buffy books to Japanese manga. The idea of this book is to provide some kind of direction and appeal, so that people can explore graphic novels. And part of that idea is to provide example pages for a selection of graphic novels, rather like a film clip or a snatch of music, so that people can see what the stories are about, how the storytelling works and even learn how to read a graphic novel.'

So what is a graphic novel? 'To have any definition for it is just not helpful. Should it have speech balloons? Can it have just one picture per page? That argument distracts from the real issue, which is to have the most interesting and diverse books and storytelling posible.' Gravett insists that Scottish artist Eddie Campbell had it right when he wrote in his manifesto that 'the term graphic novel signifies a movement rather than a form.'

Ever since 1978 when Will Eisner coined the term 'graphic novel' with A Contract With God, that movement has been maturing and innovating the cartooning medium. The much-celebrated publication in the mid-1980s of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore's [and Dave Giibbons'] Watchmen and Art Spiegelman's Maus were all watersheds. But the subsequent media frenzy created a climate publishers exploited by putting out bad quality books under the graphic novel guise. 'It was a boom and bust cycle,' says Gravett. 'Things have moved on now so that society is more accepting of graphic novels. The most hopeful thing is that publishers, like Aurum and Jonathan Cape, are starting to commission new work. And with the recent success of Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware and Joe Sacco, there is a substantial range open to the general public where there hasn't been before.'

So, where does Gravett see the graphic novel going from here? 'I think the book format graphic novels, as opposed to the pamphlet [comic book], will appeal to a new and broader readership. It's already happened in France, where graphic novels are published straight into book form. And in Japan, they have disposable [weekly, bi-weekly and] monthly [periodicals], which are later collected into hardback books to buy, keep and re-read. And I think we're going to see a lot more diversity of storytelling,' he says, citing as an example Marisa Acocella Marchetto's forthcoming graphic memoir Cancer Vixen, about a woman's battle with breast cancer. 'And I'd like to see the media talking about graphic novels in a much more literary way than they have in the past.'

The Image-Soaked Future
Graphic novels are the new literary superheroes, but what's their secret?

At the Waterstone's bookshop in Notting Hill, the graphic-novel display table has been abandoned because it had the highest theft rate of any department. In New York, the poet and critic Peter Schjeldahl noted that the graphic-novel sections in bookshops are easily identified by "the young bodies sprawled around it like casualties of a local disaster". And in The Simpsons, Comic Book Guy is the most alarmingly inadequate of all Springfield's inhabitants. There is, it seems, still something a bit iffy, not quite right, about books of illustrated stories.

This is odd, because graphic novels are now more respectable than they have ever been. They win literary prizes — Art Spiegelman's Maus got a Pulitzer — and mainstream accolades — Alison Bechdel's Fun Home was transatlantically chosen by many critics as one of the best books of 2006. They are becoming starry, too: Posy Simmonds is doing a graphic-novel version of A Christmas Carol, and Vic Reeves one of Three Men in a Boat. And they are made into movies. A sequel to Frank Miller's wild, violent Sin City is in production, and Miller's 300 is now a film. It's not just action-packed titles that are making it to the screen: Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, is to be filmed, as is the US best-seller Cancer Vixen, a graphic novel by the New Yorker cartoonist Marisa Acocella Marchetto, with Cate Blanchett mooted for the main role.

Furthermore, graphic novels sell. Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan sold 17,500 in hardback in the UK, and Joe Sacco's Palestine 28,000. This is more or less exactly the same range as any new book by big, acclaimed writers of "literary" fiction. Occasionally, they break through: Raymond Briggs sold 200,000 copies of Ethel & Ernest.

First, one rather banal reason for such success must be mentioned — Chinese printers. A few years ago, it became radically cheaper to print in China. For graphic novels, this was a turning point, as they are expensive to produce. The Jonathan Cape boss Dan Franklin, the form's leading British publisher, estimates that Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, with its fabulously complex and beautiful images, would have had to be sold at between £30 and £40 if printed in the West. Thanks to China, it sells for £18 — a lot, but not vastly out of line with a conventional hardback.

Bottom-line issues aside, what is going on? Paul Gravett sighs when I ask him. The rise of the graphic novel to literary respectability, he points out, is a story that is run every few years. In fact, the form just carries on, whether being noticed by people like me or not. Gravett is our leading authority on these books. If you want to know what to read and how to read it, his Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life is the place to start. But there is something different about this phase, which suggests that these books have finally got under the skin of the mainstream. Having immersed myself in them for a few weeks, I can safely say they got under mine.

So, what are they? There are almost as many versions of the history of the graphic novel as there are graphic novels. They may be said to be one of the earliest creative forms,dating back 20,000 years to the cave paintings at Lascaux, which do, indeed, seem to tell a story in pictures. More conventionally, they may be seen as about 300 years old, with Hogarth's The Rake's Progress as the supreme progenitor. The late Will Eisner, and a few others, said that graphic novels began in 1978, with the publication of his A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories.

But the most balanced view is that, in the West, the modern illustrated story was born in the 19th century, with comic strips appearing in both Britain and America that were, frequently, turned into books. In the 1920s, a francophone version appeared in the form of bande dessinée, best known to us via The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix. In the East, the Japanese manga tradition goes back to the 18th century. It exists today both as a parallel to American comics and as an erotic form. For me, its supreme expression is Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, the greatest cartoon film I have ever seen. In the 1930s, DC Comics and its rival, Marvel, were founded. They created the most common mainstream view of the comic as a wild fantasy land of superheroes and sci-fi epics. They influence even the most sophisticated of the "respectable" literary graphic novels — though this is often denied. The truth is that Marvel and DC, through Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America, and through superb creative editors such as Stan Lee, invented much of the visual language. Even a work as sophisticated as Jimmy Corrigan would not have been possible without the age of the superheroes.

As a consoling aside, the superheroes, after a long decline, interrupted by the occasional big movie, are making a group comeback. American comics now have a running story about a government attempt to get all resident superheroes to register. The resistance to this move is led, slightly oddly, by Captain America; the supporters are led by Iron Man. I'm with the Captain on this one: a registered superhero doesn't seem right. Further group action is signalled by the announcement of a movie called Justice League: The New Frontier. The Justice League of America, a DC invention, includes, among others, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. They are, indeed, indestructible, and now they are unionised. I hope it is not a last stand.

The crucial point about both bande dessinée and the products of Marvel/DC is their innocence. They embraced simple values and were always safe for children. This is lost in the cultish darkness of later movie versions of the superheroes, but was fundamental to their comic-book incarnations. And in the attempt to break free from the restrictive demands of innocence, the modern graphic novel was born. "Cartoonists were actually expected to keep a lid on their psyches and personal histories," Spiegelman says, "or at least disguise and sublimate them into diverting entertainments." Yet it was a hard pose to maintain. Gravett points out that even in the innocent comic golden age of the 1950s, there were "cracks in the mask". Charles Schulz's Peanuts may have been innocent on the surface, but beneath it was full of "inadequacy, disappointment and melancholy". The brilliance of Schulz was to do this so simply and so well that the anguish and the innocence became the same thing — a very deep truth indeed. But the cracked mask was ripped off and burnt in the 1960s. Robert Crumb, with dazzling graphic brilliance, turned the world of Disney, DC and Marvel into the world of sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll. The new superhero was the tripped-out freak who just kept on truckin'. And with the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Gilbert Shelton showed what the Justice League would have become had they been introduced to a ton of weed cut with a truckload of acid at a sufficiently early stage. From now on, there were no no-go areas in the comic world.

Gravett identifies 1972 as the year in which the 1960s radicalisation of comics broke through, with Justin Green's Binky Meets the Holy Virgin Mary — "an astonishing self-flagellation of Catholic guilt and obsessive-compulsive disorder". Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale, an agonised reflection on the Holocaust, appeared in 1986. They established the new wave's key theme: confessionalauto-biography. With its strong adolescent following, the graphic novel would centre on the exposure of the author's self.

This remains a dominant theme in current works. Satrapi's Persepolis is a directly autobiographical account of the author's experiences growing up in Iran, through revolution, war and tyranny. Marchetto's Cancer Vixen is subtitled A True Story and deals with her experiences of breast cancer. It's Sex and the City laced with lethal illness. Charles Burns's Black Hole uses the Buffy the Vampire Slayer technique of externalising teen trauma as horror. And Bechdel's Fun Home — unquestionably the best graphic novel I have read so far — concerns the author's way of coping with her lesbianism.

The number of women who have taken to graphic novels is striking. Superheroes, sci-fi and the Crumb-Shelton-Green phase were all essentially masculine. Wonder Woman was a token, and not a very plausible one at that. But with the form's expansion, women have found that it works to expose deeper layers or relationships, identity and history. In fact, many themes flogged to death in the conventional novel are revitalised by the addition of pictures.

I find Bechdel the best. Graphically, she is genuinely innovative. Her use of maps to show the geography of the action is quite brilliant. She is also a gifted storyteller. Fun Home is replete with the deep narrative tension of a very good novel. Ware is a more refined graphic artist, but Jimmy Corrigan's gloom is too repetitive and oppressive.

So, why is this rebirth of the serious graphic novel different? Because this new wave arrives when the ascendancy of the image — presciently described by George Steiner, in 1971, in his book In Bluebeard's Castle — has begun to dwarf the power of the word. The visual arts are booming. The screen fills our lives through television, cinema and computers. Thanks to computers, even when we are obliged to read words, we expect them to be arranged in helpful modules, with plenty of graphics. The computer normalises the graphic novel as a form. The graphical user interface may one day be seen as the most important invention of our time. Through such devices, the imperial image reigns and is, more successfully than ever before, invading the book.

Good thing, bad thing? Who knows? For me, these books are hard work. I can't relax into their images in my mind, as I do with a conventional novel. The author's versions keep dragging me back. But I guess they're not for me. They're for the kids sprawling in the graphic-novels section.

They, and Comic Book Guy, own the image-soaked future.

I've bought your book on the Graphic Novel and am so impressed with the brilliant way you've presented and organised all this material, making it come to life both for people familiar with the medium but also whetting the appetite of an audience that knows little about it.

Let the record show that Gravett's book is smart, insightful, demonstrative, useful, and, of course, grounded in solid scholarship!

The following review written by Ned Denny appeared in the Daily Mail newspaper on Friday 22 December, 2006.

The comic-book heroes with a touch of genius.

Here's a good piece of information to have at hand if anyone ever sneers at you for reading 'comic books': Goethe was a fan. The story goes that, towards the end of his life, the great poet, novelist and dramatist was shown an unpublished 'histoire en estampes' (or 'story in prints') by a schoolteacher called Rodolphe Tôpffer. Amazed and delighted by this innovative mode of storytelling, the aged genius is said to have kept repeating: 'That is really too crazy!' But his subsequent comments are more revealing still.

'If Tôpffer did not have such an insignificant text (ie story) before him,' Goethe is said to have remarked, 'he would invent things that would surpass all our expectations.'

This anecdote is taken from Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life, edited by Paul Gravett (Aurum, £18.99), a superb introduction to a medium that is finally, as its author suggests, coming into its own. The only question is why has it taken so long? According to Gravett, the years between Tôpffer's trailblazing 1832 volume and the present-day boom are a catalogue of 'missed opportunities, unrealised dreams and thwarted possibilities.'

As late as 1969, novelist and one-time cartoonist John Updike was still speaking in terms of the potential of the book-length comic rather than its actual achievements ('I see no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic-strip novel masterpiece.').

Likewise, Salvador Dali's prediction that 'comics will be the culture of the year 3794' located the genre's geniuses in a vague future world rather than the present day.

All this began to change with the appearance in 1978 of Will Eisner's A Contract With God (the trilogy is published by W.W. Norton at £18.99; paperback volumes £10.99 each). The 60-year-old Eisner was a veteran of the comics business, his cult newspaper strip The Spirit having run throughout the Forties. Inspired by the glossy, book-length collections he saw on an honorary visit to a French comic festival, Eisner sat down and produced what Gravett describes as 'a quartet of sad, moving and disarmingly unglamorous' vignettes of Jewish life in the Bronx of the Thirties.

To an industry whose mainstay was the exploits of glamorous superheroes - in other words, escapism - it was an untouchable curiosity. Eventually released by a small independent publisher, A Contract With God showed that comic book artists could tackle the same gritty subjects and thorny issues as novelists. 'I can't claim to have invented the wheel,' Eisner later remarked, 'but I felt I was in a position to change the direction of comics.'

Almost 30 years on, Eisner's brave example has spawned countless graphic novels on every subject imaginable. Take Persepolis (Cape, £14.99), Marjane Satrapi's wholly enthralling account of growing up in Iran after the 1979 revolution. While her drawings have the expressive power of woodcuts, their almost childlike simplicity allows her to deal with harrowing subjects (bombings, executions) in an accessible way. Persepolis is one of those books you wish would never end, its damning portrayal of dictatorships lingers long in the memory (luckily for Satrapi fans, her Embroideries and Chicken With Plums are equally good).

Domestic abuse and cancer are also subjects that one would never normally associate with comics, yet there are gripping graphic novels on precisely those themes. In Dragon Slippers (Harper Press, £9.99), Rosalind B. Penfold uses the sketchy style of the comic strip to relate the emotional trauma of life with a violent and manipulative man. It's an odd-sounding approach that works superbly, the light tone balancing the weighty theme to ultimately liberating effect.

Similarly, Cancer Vixen by Marisa Axocella Marchetto (4th Estate, £9.99) and Mom's Cancer (Abrams Image, £7.95) snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by means of a medium that can extract a redemptive lightness from the bleakest of situations. Even travel books can be done in comic-strip form, as Guy Delisle's gently satirical Pyongyang: A Journey In North Korea (Cape,£12.99) shows.

Nevertheless, it's a mistake to think that the graphic novel has to tackle 'serious' subjects in order to be taken seriously. Cartoons and comic books traditionally deal with the bizarre, the childlike and the supernatural - everything, in fact, that novelists tend to disdain - and it's in those strange realms that their greatest potential lies.

In fact, one of the genre's true masterpieces  is a 6,000-page multi-volume epic whose anti-hero is a misanthropic, shape-shifting aardvark. The brainchild of Canadian artist Dave Sim, Cerebus is comparable to the works of James Joyce in its formal experimentation and strange philosophic depth. Using word and image to extraordinary effect, it's a creation that would have surpassed even Goethe's wildest expectations.

Graphic Novels: slick coffee-table format, but Gravett is a serious observer of the scene and covers a lot of ground (same goes for his Manga book...).

An unsung hero in the international comics and graphic novel scene is Paul Gravett, whose most recent book Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life (2005, Collins Design) is currently in US bookshops and comic stores -- and is highly recommended. Designed by Paul's long-time partner and Escape co-founder Peter Stanbury, Graphic Novels is the latest extension and incarnation of the now-venerable Escape legacy, and bar none the best current introduction and overview of the graphic novel form. As usual, Paul's writing is informed, insightful and incredibly eye-opening, his net expansive and all-encompassing; the book is essential reading.

This book may change my life. I received this morning, in my latest mail-order comics parcel, a book entitled Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life (rather confusingly published with a different subtitle in the US, Graphic Novels: Everything You Need To Know) by famed comics guru Paul Gravett. It's the follow-up to his enormously successful Manga: Sixty Years Of Japanese Comics and is the same lush format, oversized, 192 full colour pages and beautifully designed by Peter Stanbury.

It's essentially a guide to the very best in literate graphic novels - the usual suspects like Ware, Burns, Crumb, Moore, Clowes, Eisner et al rub shoulders with lesser-known creators like Hornschemeier, Mattotti, Dorgathen, Hine and, er, Millidge. It's an impressive selection, one that matches my own remarkably closely, but what makes the volume unlike any other is the prolific number of full-page interior reproductions, which allows the reader to sample the works for themselves (rather than relying on cover repros and/or out-of context single panel enlargements). It's rather like a 21st century successor to The Staros Report, a one-stop shop window for the best of what the world of the graphic novel has to offer.

It's an essential, fabulous volume, one which any self-respecting comic connoisseur would be proud to own, and I say that without even having read it yet. The fact that Paul has selected Strangehaven as one of the featured books is probably my biggest accolade to date and I'm proud to have been included alongside so many of my peers, inspirations and heroes. It would be understandable for you to think that the selection of my book has clouded my judgment a little, and you may be right, but I don't think so. Locate a copy, flip though it and you'll be convinced, I'm sure.

Sometimes, when I tell people that I write graphic novels, they think I mean porn. Like, graphic as in explicit. They're always slightly disappointed when I say, no, like a comic book, only longer, and with swearing. This Christmas, they're all getting copies of Paul Gravett's new book, Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life (Aurum Press), so they can stop thinking I'm a pornographer.

Nobody puts the love, the lack of ego, and the knowledge into a book on comics like Paul Gravett. My lukewarm assessment of the recent Pictures & Words anthology was in part because books like Gravett's previous work on manga have raised the bar for writing on comics. No more can one collect a bunch of work from locals and mates and try to pretend it's a definitive work on cartooning. Gravett also writes with considerable charm. His opening salvo is a short essay called 'Things to Hate about Comics', where he addresses the common complaints, like, "I hate reading speech balloons", "I don't like the drawing style", "They take no time to read", "Aren't they just for kids?" (OK, you pedant in the back, his opening salvo is actually a two-page Chester Brown strip about a graphic novelist trying to be taken seriously in The New Yorker. OK, it was actually quotes from Fellini and Dali on comics. Now shut up and sit down.) From there, Gravett takes you on a whistle stop tour through thirty graphic novels, showing about five sequential pages from each and explaining storytelling, influences, and what makes that graphic novel unique. I'm about the pickiest person in the universe, and I can't fault any of his choices.

After each in-depth discussion of his thirty exemplar graphic novels, Gravett then briefly addresses four other graphic novels for each that are in a similar spirit or style. For instance, after discussing Moebius' Airtight Garage, Gravett goes on to mention Luther Arwkwright, Finder, Nausicca and The Invisible Frontier. His choices may surprise, they may delight, they may anger, but what's a work of graphic art for, if not to inspire debate? And as Gravett posts pages of sequentials from every book discussed, the book is a must-have crib for comic artists looking to broaden their techniques.

Attractively accessible, lavishly illustrated and perfectly composed, with whole pages of sequential art for each graphic novel, so you can see how the individual creators actually tell their stories, with notes in the margin helping to give a little history or context to each piece... it serves not only as the ideal introduction to comics for complete novices, but also for those wishing to broaden their comicbook horizons towards many of the genuinely best graphic novels out there.  It is, I'm pleased to say, going to make any reader want to buy a whole slab of trade paperbacks.  It'll also be the perfect book for students to plagiarise for their dissertations, so that (finally!) we don't have to write them for them... May I suggest this as the ideal Christmas present, should you wish to be an ambassador for comics?

We've sold a lot of copies of Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life in the shop, and I'm sure you'd be pleased to hear that it's having the desired effect. People come in looking for all kinds of your recommendations, people that don't seem like they already read comics, and they point at the different pages in your book to show me what they want help finding on the shelves. You get to take credit for bringing those people into the shop to try new things! Last week a guy came asking about different books that you'd mentioned in Graphic Novels, and English was definitely not his first language. It's like your Manga book educated Westerners about Eastern comics, and the Graphic Novels book has been doing the reverse!

This is one hell of a cleverly-conceived book about comics, so much so that it makes me want to put Paul Gravett in charge of everything peripheral to the creation of the art form itself. Instead of drowning the book in text, Gravett uses as his building block the reproduction of entire pages. They're arranged by general theme, with central books leading into supplementary choices. The idea seems to be 'Here is a canon, and here are the books that are just about worthy of the canon', an arrangement that flatters the art form without stretching it too thin. The writing itself, shoved to the margins or put into more general chapters, has the flexibility of staying focused on a limited effect within each work, or moving to where a certain type of material is strongest. The writing's smart, the connections are so up to date he has a Typocrat Press book as one of the satellites.

I can only think of few possible hassles with the book, one major, two minor which I offer up here mostly out of jealousy for not having thought of something similar before Mr. Gravett did. The major one is more of a philosophical point - at what point is it worth mentioning minor work that better flatters the notion that the art form values wide-ranging expression than that the art form offers compelling works that demand our attention? There are a lot of books here, particularly in the secondary choices, that fit their cateogry but that I might wave people away from entirely. The first minor quibble is that I'm not entirely certain for whom the book is intended. I can understand the joy of reading it without quite grasping the necessity of buying it. I imagine libraries would do very well with this book, just because it arranges contemporary graphic novels in a way that's better than 98 percent of all articles written about the phenomenon, with the aforemention massive amount of detail. But it's not something people would pull from their personal bookshelves a whole lot. The second quibble I'd have is while Mr. Gravett does a terrific job of drawing on a lot of book from a lot of traditions - he remember's Sam Glanzman's A Sailor's Story, and showcases the art in Mattotti's Fires, he seems to have a lot more faith in works springing from the British comics tradition than I do.

But philisophical disagreements and quibbles fail to meet Gravett's book in its awesome march down the middle road. Anything else said on my part would have to come with a thorough, close reading of the text, and to be honest, I'm still looking at the pictures and wishing I were this smart.

And here's undoubtedly the best book about graphic novels to sashay this way in a long while: Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Knowby Paul Gravett (192 9x11-inch pages in glorious color; paperback, $24.95). And it lives up to its ambitious title. If you have trouble keeping up on this rapidly expanding literary genre this book will take you a long way to sweet sanity and lucid comprehension. It's part history and part appreciation and all orientation and thoughtful guidance. Its twelve chapters divide the graphic novel universe into thematic clusters superheroicism, crime, comedy, and the like. Each chapter opens with a 2-4 page essay that mixes history and explication. After that comes a two-page introduction to a landmark graphic novel. The superhero chapter uses Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. Gravett prints 4-5 pages of the book, with marginal notes that point out the principal plot developments while dropping a clue or two about how to interpret and integrate into the story the visual elements on display. Readers learn about The Dark Knight Returns approaches the subject the pictures and the panels in a graphic novel function to aid and abet the storytelling. Terrific. Who could ask for more? Ah, but there is more. The model graphic novel is then followed by half-page descriptions (including a sample page) of other graphic novels partaking of the same trend case, Miller's Daredevil, then Weapon X, Powers, and It's A Bird; in short, a progression that goes from a familiar superhero treatment to less and less familiar ones. The sample pages are a canny touch: they show the artwork, and with graphic novels, the appearance of the drawings is an important factor in convincing a person to read the book. The superheroicism chapter also includes Alan Moore's Watchmen, a 2-page short examination of five pages (like the Dark Knight introduction), then on successive pages, four more short novel descriptions City, Marshal Law, Promethea, and Planetary. In another chapter, Gravett begins with Jaime Hernandez's Locas, then goes to Food Boy, Paul Has A Summer Job, My New York Diary, and Maison Ikkoku. And the book ventures beyond these shores, too. After The Airtight Garage, Gravett rambles into Luther Arkwright, Finder, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, and The Invisible Frontier. The Sandman is followed by Bone, Rose, Hellboy, and Kingdom of the Wicked.

In this manner, Gravett manages to nod briefly in the direction of most of the major graphic novels of the last few years hints for understanding the genre based upon pictures and manipulation of visual elements as well as story and plot. I read his two-page introduction to Jimmy Corrigan, which I've not read entirely because the fragments I've dipped into seem so tedious, and almost at once, I could see, thanks to Gravett's notations, how Chris Ware manipulates the medium and to what effect, and my appreciation for Ware's work improved. Ditto Jim Woodring's Frank stories, which have alwlays baffled me despite my admiration for Woodring's rendering style. Gravett has constructed his book to function deliberately as a guide to appreciating graphic novels. The opening pages briefly summarize the concepts of thirty important graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan, Frank, The Watchmen. At the end of every one-paragraph description, Gravett refers the reader who wants to know more to the chapter in which the 2-page exegesis takes place, followed by those introductions to other novels in the same vein. Clustering the novels by theme is a useful organizing device very effective orientation to the genre as a whole (by examining its parts, so to speak). And there's an Index, so if you are looking for insights about a specific title, you can find it if Gravett covers it herein.

Gravett is a sensitive and knowledgeable reader, and he can write succinct and clear prose, too. He actually reveals the aesthetic workings of his subject instead of merely blathering mystically on about it, the practice of too many would-be critics who substitute vocabulary for perception. My only complaint about the book is that the sample pages from graphic novels are necessarily so small that you need special equipment to read the speech balloons. But Gravett is so good at this, that I unholstered my magnifying glass without a single shrug nor snarl. There should be more books like this.

Paul Gravett is a noted comics critic and lecturer, and wrote the well-received Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics. Now a Harper Collins imprint has released his guide to graphic novels and how to appreciate them.

Sporting a Dan Clowes cover - an image from his story Caricature blown up and colored, perhaps, or possibly the cover to some foreign edition of stories - and horror manga lettering, it's clear from the start that Gravett and designer Peter Stanbury are going to offer at least a good-looking product. While droll, the opening, 'Things To Hate About Comics' had me skeptical, but one must remember this book is for those new to comics and graphic novels. In a concise, friendly way, Gravett explains how to read the page and the elements unique to comics, such as speech balloons.

He then begins what is really the heart of the book, which is his insightful looks at most of the notable graphic novels ever created, but again, he does this in a way that won't overwhelm the new reader. It's really a clever scheme: he provides thumbnail synopses of 30 diverse graphic novels - only two of them in the superhero subgenre - and then goes on to look at each book 'In Focus', with sample pages and analyses of the different themes, art styles and storytelling devices. Gravett then provides a 'Following On From' section for each graphic novel, wherein he provides thumbnail synopses of four other graphic novels with similarities in subject matter, genre and/or tone to one of the 30 main books. For example, Enki Bilal's dystopian epic, The Nikopol Trilogy has as its peers and descendants Akira, America, American Flagg! and Y: The Last Man. If John Wagner's and Colin MacNeil's Judge Dredd tale America doesn't sound familiar, well, that's where the book is rewarding for all but the most cosmopolitan graphic novel enthusiast. Gravett could be chided for including many obscure graphic novels, or comics that aren't even in print as graphic novels these days, such as the long-delayed Flagg!, but it seems a valid argument that it's better to spotlight the best books and hope they'll be back in print soon than substituting the lesser efforts just because they're readily available.

In addition to the 150 books covered here, Gravett also includes chapter breaks with essays on various kinds of comics, such as war comics, and ends each essay with a list of another ten books. These sections are rich with enticing and appropriate images; it's lovely to open the book and see Moebius, Bilal and Mignola across two pages. Gravett and Stanbury never forget the visual appeal of sequential art, so Gravett's prose must be distilled for maximum effect in the spaces he's allotted. As such, he rarely achieves great insight in anything but the 30 main books, but he is a consistently engaging, intelligent graphic novel cheerleader everywhere else.

The value of this book to the novice is unquestionable, as it presents graphic novels and comics as a vital, wide-ranging art form created all over the world, and with attractive reproduction unseen in other graphic novel guides. As someone who considered himself pretty knowledgeable on the best the form has to offer, I was pleasantly humbled to find so many interesting books I need to catch up on.

When I think about some of my experiences from the last 40 years of collecting, following and delightfulness with comics and pleasure which I had reading them (Pegasus from Zika Bogdanovic, Have You Seen the Girls by Igor Kordey, big and small format of Strip Art magazines from Ervin Rustemagic, articles from Zoran Djukanovic, Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware) I can only regret that I did not write enough about them and at least express my gratitude to the authors for the spiritual pleasure that they have provided for me.

This time I am not going to be lazy and I believe that the wider circle of comic enthusiasts might be interested to hear about one new book, which I bought, read and enjoyed.

That book is by Paul Gravett, an eloquent and active English writer. Paul had published a book about Manga comics and for more than 20 years he has been regularly writing, preparing exhibitions, teaching and promoting comics. His book Graphics Novels, Stories to Change Your Life (Aurum Press Ltd, 2005) provides information about 30 graphics novels which are so strong that they changed his life and views, and which will probably have the same effect on the readers of Paul's book. I would not like now to become involved in defining the term 'graphic novels' and rather say simply that we have here 30 books with comics, from 44 do 700 pages, published in the period from 1976 to 2005.

Paul's book has a very modern text arrangement. It consists of 10 headings or topics and within each heading there are 2-4 graphics novels. The headings and the novels are:

The Undiscovered Country:
Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
Epileptic by David B.
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

The Other Side Of The Tracks:
A Contract With God by Will Eisner
Locas by Jaime Hernandez
Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez
It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken by Seth

The Long Shadow:
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa
Palestine by Joe Sacco

The Superhuman Condition:
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Of Futures And Fables:
The Airtight Garage by Moebius
The Nikopol Trilogy by Enki Bilal
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

In The Mind's Eye:
Strange Embrace by David Hine
Black Hole by Charles Burns

Murder, Smoke And Shadows:
Scene of the Crime by Ed Brubaker
Sin City by Frank Miller
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Behind The Smile:
The Frank Book by Jim Woodring
Cerebus by Dave Sim
American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
When The Winds Blows by Raymond Briggs

Travels In Time:
Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt
Buddha by Osamu Tezuka
From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Passion Beyond Reason:
My Troubles with Women by Robert Crumb
Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds
Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie

Each novel is presented on two pages, richly illustrated, and then, on the next two pages, another 4 novels are presented, which arrived in the world of comics before or after the main novel. The additional novels have a similar graphic style or topic to the main novel, but they are themselves very valuable and independent works. Hence, the total of 150 graphics novels is presented in the book.

The main technical flaws of the book are (a) within additional novels, the authors and titles are not emphasised (you have to read the whole text to identify the author and the title) and (b) in an introductory text of each heading there are some pictures of books, but without any explanations.

Thanks to the author of this book, the selected graphic novels represent different interests and authors in the world of modern comics and they cover a wide range of artistic individuality. My modest theoretical understanding of comics, but long term reading experience and the fact that I have read most of these novels, leads me to the conclusion that we have in front of us masterpieces of modern comics. Unfortunately, many of these titles are unknown in Serbia , thanks to our many years of isolation, but this book could be an excellent guide for our publishers as well for our individual readers. Especially for the readers who are a bit older and experienced and who are trying not to miss the works of a historical importance for the comic art.

Looking into Paul's selection of graphic novels, I can only say (the opposite to Mirko Ilic's opinion that the comics medium is going to die) that as books or radio did not die after the appearance of television, similarly the comics are not going to disappear with the arrival of illustrations and/or computer animations. On the contrary, I believe that the comics are more vital than ever - new authors choose to investigate life and reveal their findings through comics disregarding the necessary hard work and modest financial reward. The comic art lays on enthusiasm of the public and authors. It is not destroyed with the simple attempt to entertain and earn quick money (which is the case largely in music, movies and television), and the spectrum of topics and engagements is endless. This book confirms all of these statements. We can only be grateful to Paul Gravett for keeping us informed about some of the greatest modern comics works.

The book is in a big format (slightly wider than A4 format) and can be bought in comics' shops for about £19 (plus £5-6 for postage to Serbia).

Like that other impure, but more respectable, form, grand opera, it can hold a moment pure and rich in our minds; it can tell us what every character in a scene is thinking. It can stylise movement as effectively as dance or photography; it is the home of some of the snappiest dialogue since Philip Marlowe hung up his fedora. Yet we still have to have the conversation about whether it is a legitimate art form at all.

One strategy its defenders are ill-advised to adopt is to privilege the graphic novel from literary publishers, which is often downbeat in mood and inconclusive in narrative structure, over more commercial tales of superheroes, gods and demons. Of course, a lot of DC and Marvel comics are routine slap-'em-ups, but as Paul Gravett points out, the best have a vitality in their creation of modern mythology that it would be a mistake to do without.

Perhaps the greatest of the many strengths of Gravett's introduction to the graphic novel is that he has no preconceptions about where excellence is to be found. He rates Alan Moore's Watchmen, with its masked vigilantes facing catastrophe and existential doubt, as highly as Art Spiegelman's Maus, which tells the story of Auschwitz with cartoon animals.

Gravett is keen to demonstrate how the books he selects for close analysis can change the way we see narrative and understand iconography. His close readings are exemplary studies which can spark new perceptions even in jaded old consumers. One of the reasons why Gravett's criticism is so full of insights is precisely that generosity and refusal of prejudice. It is especially relevant, perhaps, that he rates so highly the Hernandez brothers. Full of vitality, tragedy and tenderness, their Palomar and Locas are extended magic-realist graphic novels about life in rural Central America, and among mostly Hispanic LA teenagers. In an important and attractive book, Gravett's almost infallible judgement makes it possible for newcomers to catch up on a whole area of cultural literacy.

I love graphic novels but I have been searching for something book to give me some reader's advisory in the area of graphic novels for grownups and also a resource where I could refer staff and/or patrons who ask - what is a graphic novel? This book does it all. This will be a purchase for my collection as soon as my tax dollars come in. Paul highlights a number of groundbreaking graphic novels while also indentifying specific illustrative and textual features within those novels that you -as the reader-may or may not have noticed. I am eating this book like a five course meal. Seriously. If you like graphic novels- pick it up to get in deeper and maybe find a few gems you missed along the way. If you don't know anything about graphic novels or major authors in the field- read to discover a whole new world. I would love to see this author in a workshop. This is good stuff. I want you to check it out so much that I risk life and limb to post the cover on here with attribution to author and desinger in the hopes that you will order it for your library right away. You won't be disappointed.

Dividing the spectrum of graphic novels into genres, Gravett focuses on key works, such as Dan Clowes's Ghost World, Will Eisner's A Contract with God, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen and more. He reproduces a choice page from each artist's work, clearly explains the story excerpts and then provides incisive commentary on the creators' storytelling techniques. And he's at his finest showing how certain visual images and graphic storytelling devices illuminate the themes and characterizations in a comics story.

This isn't about Mr. Gravett's judgment; it's how he and designer Peter Stanbury have put together their travel guide to comic books. It's a visually smart treatment of a visually smart medium. After the required introductory defense of comics, Mr. Gravett focuses on 30 landmark works from Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan to Frank Miller's Sin City and Osamu Tezuka's Buddha. Sample pages are explained, panel by panel. Then their influence is traced through other graphic novels. It's like the cool art-history textbook you never had in high school.

One fat quibble: To reproduce entire pages, Graphic Novels often reduces them in size until their captions are eyestrainingly tiny. The book should come with its own magnifying glass.

Englanninkielisessä maailmassa on kai sitten turha enää harata sarjakuvaromaani-käsitettä (graphic novel) vastaan. Vaikka muistaisi, että koko sana juontuu Will Eisnerin hätäpäissään keksimästä määreestä Talo Bronxissa -albumille, joka on pikemmin novellikokoelma.

Mutta se ei ole Gravettin syy. Hän on valikoinut mukaan 150 teosta. Gravettin asiantuntemuksesta kertoo, että kiintoisia uusia tuttavuuksia löytyy selailemalla, vaikka sarjakuvan kentän tuntisi hyvinkin.

Ulkoasun on tehnyt jälleen mangasta tuttu Gravettin kumppani Peter Stanbury. Mainio keksintö on tietoverkosta ja rompuista lainattu rakenne, joka ohjaa selailua lajityypin, aiheiden ja muiden tekijöiden mukaan. Jos kiinnostut tästä, kirja opastaa jatkamaan tuonne.

Alkajaisiksi on listattu 30 keskeistä teosta, joista on hyvä alkaa sukellus sarjakuvan maailmaan. Sen jälkeen kirja jakaantuu temaattisiin lukuihin, joissa esitellään kymmentä eri aihetta kuvaavia albumeita. Teemoja on lapsuudesta sotaan, supersankareista rakkauteen. Ja vinkit verkottavat sisältöä oivaltavasti.

Gravett kirjoittaa innostavasti ja terävästi. Jossain määrin häntä on rajoittanut yleisö. Hän on rajannut kirjansa suosiolla englanninkielisille lukijoille, joten se ei ole kaiken sarjakuvan yleisteos. Esimerkiksi mannereurooppalaista sarjakuvaa se ei yritäkään hallita kattavasti.

Kaikissa tällaisissa kirjoissa valinnat ovat tietysti aina henkilökohtaisia. Mutta onkohan kuitenkaan ihan järkevää antaa kokonainen luku supersankareille? Eniten arveluttaa Frank Millerin Yön ritarin ja Sin Cityn sisällyttäminen 30:n kärkilistalle.

Gravett kirjoittaa aikuisille ihmisille ja pyrkii siis tavoittamaan ne, jotka eivät ole välttämättä lukeneet sarjakuvia aiemmin. Jos joku järkevä ihminen tarttuu Graphic Novelsin suosituksesta Yön ritarin supermelodramaattista fasisti-Batmania, hän tuskin enää koskaan kokeilee Art Spiegelmanin Mausia tai mitään muutakaan, vaikka kuinka vakuuteltaisiin.

page 88
L'Écho des Savanes was not founded in 1974 by a disaffected Moebius & Druillet, but in 1972 by Claire Bretécher, Marcel Gotlib and Nikita Mandryka.

page 136
Frank's pet is called Pupshaw, not Pushpaw. This mistake arose from page 344 in The Frank Book which incorrectly bills the name of 'Frank's testy little bowser-box' as Pushpaw in the title, but amends this to Pupshaw in the text beneath.

page 171
Steve Bissette has meticulously clarified the origins of Phoebe Zeit-Geist and thanks to Dennis Perrin's incredibly detailed biography Mr. Mike: The Life & Work Of Michael O'Donoghue (1998, Avon Books) established that it was not inspired by Barbarella. Bissette writes further:

"O'Donoghue's first published work in Evergreen Review appeared in the August/Sept, 1964 issue, a satirical article entitled "The Automation of Caprice" (Perrin, pg. 109). Perrin traces Phoebe Z-G's origins to O'Donoghue's great affection for Terry Southern's novel Candy (1957, first US mass market publication 1964); it informed a character featured in O'Donoghue's "Automation" essay, named Ramona Wedgewood, who evolved into what became Phoebe Z-G... So it appears that Phoebe Z-G evolved and its first chapters were completed before its creators, O'Donoghue and Springer, had seen or were aware of Barbarella; but it debuted one issue after Barbarella's first translated chapter was published in the US. My statements about the 1950s and early '60s material it satirized was correct in terms of the pop cultural context, but Terry Southern's novel Candy was the clear inspirational wellspring for Phoebe Z-G according to O'Donoghue himself."