A series followed - Nolan and Jon, I think around eight books to date - and all of the entries are filled with comics references. My first novel, 'Bait Money' (1973), was about a fifty-ish bank robber and his young, unlikely accomplice, a comic book collector in his early twenties. I was kind of a black sheep at that prestigious writer's school, with my 'commercial' goals but I wrote three mystery novels there, and sold all of them - the first two, literally, in the last week of class. I began writing mystery novels in junior high, kept at it in high school - sending a manuscript out, getting it rejected, starting another - and continued the process at the University of Iowa, where I was in both the undergrad and graduate Writers Workshop. 'But around the seventh grade, I got interested in mystery fiction my favorite comic books were 'Dick Tracy' and 'Batman,' so the jump to hardboiled private eyes was a short one. We've selected a handful of new titles worthy of attention even from those who don't see themselves as comic book obsessives.'I grew up in Iowa a kid loving and reading comics, and dreaming of being a cartoonist,' Collins told CBR News. And there's a growing respect for artists such as Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco, who use graphic novels to tell stories as powerful and profound as any literary fiction. They're also becoming more mainstream, thanks in part to the attention garnered by film versions of major works (Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning Spirited Away and the Tom Hanks vehicle Road to Perdition, for example).

Whether they're original illustrated novels, adaptations of classic literature or collections of single-issue comics, graphic novels tend to have a heft and seriousness that mean grown-ups don't have to be embarrassed about reading them.

But these days, publishers are producing graphic novels of maturity, complexity and beauty that appeal to a wider audience.

They're generally seen as kid stuff and admittedly, some are. Graphic novels aren't just kid stuff anymoreĬomics get a bad rap.

The road to perdition graphic novel