Graphic Novels

I've recently finished reading Neil Gaiman's Stardust. It's a fantasy story which was deliberately written in a pre-Tolkein style more reminiscent of Victorian fantasy literature with huge dollops of Gainman's humour and social satire. It's very enjoyable and there was a film version a couple of years ago which was just as much fun. It's only the second Gaiman book I've read, following Good Omens which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett. I really enjoyed that one as well which raises the question of why I haven't read more Gaiman; and the answer is that most of his stories are graphic novels.

Graphic novels, and the greater comic book genre in general, is one that I've never been able to get to grips with. It's not that I don't regard them as worthy of reading - far from it; I've always found the genre to be intriguing and of high artistic merit. It's just that it strikes me as a very disjointed way of reading a story. I'm happy enough when it's an illustrated novel with pictures interspersed with narrative text but when it gets down to individual frames with speech and thought bubbles I start to lose the plot.

I have had a try at graphic novels. A friend lent me a couple and I was very taken with one of them, Watchmen, which falls into the alternate history genre. I have also tried a couple from the library - one of which was a graphic biography of Friedrich Nietzsche! However, I still find the same problem in that I can read through a whole chapter, put the book down and find I have no idea of what has just gone on.

It's a pity because there are graphic novels I would like to read, such as Gainman's The Sandman and Art Spiegelman's Maus as well as whole swathes of works by Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Really, I should just raid the library's graphic novel section and dive in as, like any other art form, the conventions and techniques need to be learnt and appreciated to actually get the most out of the genre.

However, I may be my own worst enemy. I've been trying to encourage my oldest son to try and read a biography to little avail and I think his resistance to that is the same as my resistance to graphic novels.