Monday, February 16, 2009

Graphic Novel Monday: Broad Appeal

Broad Appeal, edited by David Roman. Published 2003 by Friends of Lulu. Paperback.

Click here to buy Broad Appeal from your favorite indie bookstore.

Broad Appeal is an anthology of comics and graphic storytelling all by women- some well-known, and some making her debut in this volume. It's published by the Friends of Lulu, whose purpose is to increase the number of women reading, drawing and publishing comics. To that end, they've put together this great anthology.

If you're a reader of zines and graphic novels you'll recognize many of the women featured here- Abby Denson (Passing Notes), Megan Kelso (The Squirrel Mother), Amy Kim Ganter (Sorcerers and Secretaries, a great English-language-original manga), Lela Lee (Angry Little Girls!), Rachel Hartman (Amy Unbounded) and others as well.

Since it's an anthology, Broad Appeal features a variety of styles and subject matter. It's all in black and white but the styles of drawing represented go all over the map, from simple sketches to highly accomplished pen and ink art. My favorite comic in the book is Jennifer Feinberg's hilarious four page short story "The Glue Factory", about what happens to misbehaving cats. It's not what you think!

The book also features interviews with several artists, to give some more insight into the art and business of comics, and biographies of all contributors. Overall the content would be appropriate for teens- there's not much in the way of either foul language or sexual references, but the humor might be a little too sophisticated for smaller children. I really, really enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) this fun anthology and I hope that anyone interested in getting to know graphic novels would want to pick up a copy too.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review from the publisher.

3 comments:

Anna said...

Thanks for bringing this one to my attention. It looks neat. I really, really, really need to read a graphic novel. I keep seeing ones that look good, but I haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

Anonymous said...

I'd like to try this one. I've only read a few graphic novels, but think it would be great to read a collection by women.

Zibilee said...

I have never read a graphic novel, but I think that your Monday feature on graphic novels is really neat. Before I started looking here I had no idea if graphic novels would be my thing, much less what was out there to chose from. I like the look of this one in particular because it seems like it has a good sampling of lots of different stuff, plus it focuses on the women authors. Thanks!