Some of you may have noticed the surge in Graphic Novels for Teens, in particular YA Series made into Graphic Novels. I was doing some of my stalking… I mean “checking up on” some of my favorite Publishing Company sites and Blogs and I came across a few posts about Graphic Novels and some new ones soon to be released.  I have never really taken the time to read Graphic Novels, outside of my days with Buffy The Vampire Slayer (but that’s another story).  That being said I absolutely love the idea of novels being transformed into Graphic Novels.  If anything it brings a wider audience to literature they might not have normally read and people who might not normally read Graphic Novels to them.  All around, I think it is a fantastic phenomenon. 

I personally started to notice this trend when Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was in the promise of being turned into a Graphic Novel (I am a HUGE Austen Freak).  I love the new ways that Classics are being adapted.  ((Plus, the Pride and Prejudice Graphic Novel is just pretty and fun to look at!)

Graphic Novels in general are really starting to take hold, and you can see this when you step foot into any Public Library these days.  My Public Library devotes almost 1/3 of it’s Teen section to Graphic Novels.  That’s a lot of Graphic Novels if you really think about! – they are small in comparison to normal novels.

So how does this translate into YA Literature???  Very easy indeed! It is inevitable when a YA Novel is as popular as some of them are to be transformed into something else to find a wider audience.  For example, the very famous Twilight series.  With as huge as the books, movies, merchandise, etc. have been it is only natural that Vampires be portrayed in the pages of a Graphic Novel – again, they are nice to look at too. Maybe this will make is “cooler” for guys to read Twilight….

The end of this ‘trend’ is no where near its end, if it ever will have one.  I am a HUGE HGUE fan of the Vampire Academy Series and I am very physched about it’s Graphic Novel debut in August!

The only down side to turning YA lit into Graphic Novels is within the imagination… While reading any novel I form these images in my imagination of what the characters and settings look like – in long series such as the Vampire Academy series, those images become very solid and concrete; rarely did Rose’ or Dimitri’s physical appearance change for me.  So what does this mean when I see that the character son the front cover of the Graphic Novel are different than what I originally imagined them to be?  While I don’t think this will play a huge role in the enjoyment of reading it when it comes out, I do think that in a way it does a diservice to the Graphic Novel as a separate entity from the Novels. 

That being said, again, I think that turning YA lit into Graphic Novels invites a very much wider audience.  One could hope that after reading the Graphic Novel they will want to read the novel itself. 

What are your thoughts?
Do you read Graphic Novels?
Do you like/dislike Graphic Novels?
Do you think YA Lit should stay just a novel?