Synopsis

Variety Is the Spice of Book Clubs

Aside from the social aspect of book clubs, many people get involved with discussion groups to expand upon the scope and breadth of what they read; despite this fact, it often seems that book clubs fall into the trap of staying within their "safety" zones by reading the literature, popular fiction, and high-profile non-fiction titles its individual members would probably be reading on his/her own. Roz Chast's upcoming Pen & Podium lecture gave us pause for consideration of this fact because her newest book, Theories of Everything, is not your "typical" book club selection, though it would make a fascinating springboard for book club discussion. How, though, can a book club host a discussion about non-traditional mediums, such as graphic novels and collections of cartoons?

Joining us for this conversation is The Denver Post's own Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mike Keefe.

Mike Keefe, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, has been the editorial cartoonist for The Denver Post since 1975. Throughout the nineties he was a weekly contributor to USA Today and a regular on America Online. Nationally syndicated, his cartoons have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, US News and World Report, The New York Times, The Washington Post and hundreds of newspapers across the country.

Keefe served as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and is a former John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. Among other honors, he's won the National Headliner's Award, Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award, The Best of the West Journalism Contest, The National Press Association Berryman Award and the Fischetti Cartoon Competition. He served as a Pulitzer juror in 1997 and 1998.

Author of Running Awry, McGraw Hill; and The 10 Speed Commandments, Doubleday, Keefe also published a collection of his editorial cartoons in the mid-1980s. (A collection of recent work in forthcoming.)

Keefe and Tim Menees, former cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, were co-creators of the nationally-syndicated comic strips Cooper and Iota.

Keefe is a former US Marine and a college math teacher. (He completed coursework for a Ph.D. in topology before being lured into cartooning.) He is married with two grown children and plays guitar regularly with Falling Rock, an oldies cover band.

His cartoons can be viewed online at www.intoon.com

Reading Group Discussion Questions

How do you discuss a graphic novel? How can your book club have an evening-long conversation about a collection of cartoons, like those by Roz Chast? It's important to remember that although these mediums are not literary narratives, they are forms of visual storytelling that lend themselves well to incisive and lively conversation. Booklist Online, a website dedicated to books reviews from the American Library Association, recommends the following topics to jumpstart your book club:

1. Depth—The story, themes and characters should be intricate enough and work on enough levels that discussion can really delve into the narrative and produce a similarly complex and layered experience.
2. Issues—The material must raise a number of topics to incite a worthwhile discussion that can branch out and explore members' perspectives and feelings in more personal ways.
3. Occasional Controversy—Nothing livens up a conversation (or bares inner feelings) like a bit of controversy. Racism, politics, pornography—all subjects that help keep the discourse spirited. Many cartoons and graphic novels have sparked controversy and have been "challenged" by schools and libraries.
4. Comparison to traditional storytelling – If graphic novels can offer the same intellectual and social engagement that traditional books can, what (if anything) do they offer that a standard novel or memoir does not?
5. Art—By telling tales through an essential unity of words and images, graphic novels offer a bonus discussion topic by their very nature. How do the images support and emphasize the narrative? Does the style and tone of the art exemplify the voice and structure of the prose? Certain graphic novels are so experimental in design and draftsmanship that your group might not even get around to discussing the story itself.

Graphic Novels & Cartoon Recommendations for Your Book Club

Theories of Everything. By Roz Chast. Illustrated by the author.

This capacious collection reminds us that [Roz Chast's] scribbley drawings are deceptively childlike, that they are actually shrewdly detailed word and picture concoctions that reinvent the cartoon form, even as they capture the oddness, discontinuity and plain absurdity of the world around us. (From The New York Times review of Theories of Everything)

What It Is. By Lynda Barry. Illustrated by the author.

Every so often a book comes along that surpasses expectations, taking readers on an inspirational voyage that they don't want to leave. This is one such book. Each page is a feast for the eyes with beautiful full-page collages of photographs, watercolors, ink drawings, and text, resulting in a gorgeous volume that explores and encourages writing in a combination of ways. The author challenges readers with philosophical questions to ponder, such as What is an image? Where are they found? Can we remember something we can't imagine? (From School Library Journal)

Maus: A Survivor's Tale. By Art Spiegelman, Illustrated by the author (1986)

Some historical events simply beggar any attempt at description -- the Holocaust is one of these. Therefore, as it recedes and the people able to bear witness die, it becomes more and more essential that novel, vigorous methods are used to describe the indescribable. Examined in these terms, Art Spiegelman's Maus is a tremendous achievement, from a historical perspective as well as an artistic one. (From Editorial Review by Michael Gerber)

American Born Chinese. By Gene Luen Yang. Illustrated by the author (2006)

In three apparently unrelated tales, Jin faces the casual racism of other school kids and its consequences upon his own self-image; Danny endures a visit from his cousin Chin-Kee, a living conglomeration of hideous stereotypes; and the Monkey King of Chinese folklore battles the other gods to attain higher status. The first graphic novel ever nominated for the National Book Award and winner of the 2007 Printz Award, its twisting narrative, ironic tone, classical page composition, and deep, human insights stand alone but could also make an excellent contrast for the straight narrative, epic sweep, experimental art, and deep, human insights of another graphic novel that explores themes of immigration, Shaun Tan's The Arrival (2007).

Asterios Polyp. By David Mazzucchelli. Illustrated by the author (2009)

Mazzucchelli delivers an incomparable piece of design, with meticulous attention to every sculptural face and individual font chosen for each character's speech. Polyp is an academic and architect whose genius reaches its limits the moment he must consider anyone but himself. No other graphic novel communicates the mundane but riveting course of a life so well.

Black Hole. By Charles Burns. Illustrated by the author (2005)

In a pitch-black story of a sexually transmitted "bug" that causes severe mutations in a group of small-town teens, the heightened tensions of adolescence are charged with elements of nightmare exemplified by the highly stylized, drenched-in-shadow atmosphere of Burns' unique visuals.

The Naked Cartoonist. By Bob Mankoff (Cartoon editor of The New Yorker since 1997).

Along with some help from his well-known cartoonist friends, Mankoff takes you on an entertaining words-and-pictures journey through the art, craft, and zen of cartooning, along the way providing lots of personal anecdotes about his development as an artist, and about life at the world's most urbane magazine. But you don't have to be an aspiring cartoonist to appreciate The Naked Cartoonist. Mankoff's wisdom, and his practical yet whimsical approach to the creative process, are designed to benefit anyone who has ever stared at a blank piece of paper or canvas and dreamed of transforming it into something truly original (and maybe even commercial). (Provided by publisher)

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. By Alison Bechdel. Illustrated by the author (2006)

Bechdel recalls coming to terms with her sexual orientation, a process intensified by her emotionally distant father's tortured struggle with his own sexual identity.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. By Chris Ware. Illustrated by the author (2000)

Jimmy trundles through a life of middle-aged desperation and disappointment, until his estranged father appears, which doesn't improve things. Ware's compact, hyper-controlled composition and astonishingly precise art lend an air of inescapability to the most depressing graphic novel ever produced (no kidding).

Lost Girls. By Alan Moore. Illustrated by Melinda Gebbie (2006)

Alice, Dorothy Gale, and Wendy Darling come together in later life and retell their adventures the way they really happened: as glorious (and occasionally disturbing) sexual explorations of the most explicit sort. Moore's literary sensibility and Gebbie's art (evoking the literary world from which these characters sprang) raise the bar for pornographic comics sky high. Adventurous book groups looking for something daring could do no better than this.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. By Marjane Satrapi. Illustrated by the author (2003)

Satrapi's account of the trials of growing up in Iran — including religious oppression, the allure of Western culture, and the Iran-Iraq War — is visualized with art that conveys nuance even as its deceptively simple strokes suggest the perspective of a child.

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. By Scott McCloud. Illustrated by the author (1994)

Science, history, and art all in one, McCloud's seminal work of comics theory defines the nature and execution of sequential art . . . in sequential art form. For additional information and an excitingly dynamic presentation about the "magic of comics," we encourage your book club to click here and watch Scott McCloud on Ted.com.

Watchmen. By Alan Moore. Illustrated by Dave Gibbons (1995)

What would a real person be like in order to put on a costume and fight crime? Moore's answer is as virtuoso a work as the format has to offer, filled with political intrigue, psychological nuance, and innate truths.

The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker (Volume 1 & Volume 2), edited by Michael Diffee.

Each week about fifty New Yorker cartoonists submit ten ideas, yielding five hundred cartoons for no more than twenty spots in the magazine. Arguably the most brilliant single-panel-gag cartoonists in the world create a bunch of cartoons every week that never see the light of day. These rejects were piling up in the dusty corners of studios all over the country until editor Matthew Diffee tapped his fellow cartoonists, asking them to rescue these hilarious lost gems. From the artists' stacks of all-time favorite rejects, Diffee handpicked the standouts and created The Rejection Collection, a place where good ideas go when they die. Too risqué, silly, or weird for The New Yorker, the cartoons in this book offer something no other collection has: They have never been seen in print until now.

Reviews of Roz Chast's Theories of Everything

The New York Times

Oprah.com

Hipster Dad's Bookshelf (blog)

Sacramento Book Review