Just, off the top of your head, no looking at Google or anything, if I asked you: which two graphic novels, out of 100 total books, made it onto the list of the New York Times‘s Best Books of the 21st Century, what would you say? If you answered Persepolis and Fun Home, congrats, you win nothing except bragging rights. And a general working knowledge of graphic novels.
To be clear, this is not slagging off the two books — far from it. But given the breadth of novels published in the first quarter of the 21st Century, the only comics that 500 experts could come up with over six months are two of the most over-the-plate answers possible. And yes, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home are excellent. But whither Asterios Polyp? Or Saga? Even All-Star Superman, Hark! A Vagrant, or Ducks?
I could go for… Well, hours, probably. Also to clarify, the list is relatively solid (though has drawn some ire online), with Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend taking the top slot. And oh hey, there’s a graphic novel adaptation of that which is also excellent!
The Times does recommend other graphic novels to check out, too… Under Fun Home they recommend Blankets and My Dirty Dumb Eyes from Lisa Hanawalt (which curiously links to Relish by Lucy Knisley). Under Persepolis, one of the links is broken and the other is a non-graphic novel. So maybe that’s not so great.
The point here is that even with all the strides graphic novels — and the comic book art form as a whole — have made over the years, they still struggle to hold legitimacy over books without pictures. Wild, too, because anecdotally I would say that graphic novels are dominating the conversation, as least where kids are concerned. They’re big business, and an entire generation is being raised with graphic novels read in schools side by side with “regular” books.
So perhaps we needn’t worry? Perhaps this is the last gasp of throwing in your requisite two graphic novels on a list of 100 books and calling it a day? After all, those kids will be adults working at the New York Times soon enough. Maybe we’ll have more of an even split when the paper revisits this in 2049.
In the meantime, it’s always worth checking out Persepolis and Fun Home, if you haven’t. But use that as a gateway into a wide world of other amazing graphic novels — many of which were published in the 21st Century.
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