GG’s graphic oversight
There is growing controversy in Canada about the Governor General’s Awards. Mariko Tamaki has been shortlisted for SKIM, a graphic novel. Fair enough - it’s the first in the genre to have been nominated for these awards and by all accounts it’s an outstanding work that has received many accolades. The problem is that the illustrator, Mariko’s cousin Jillian, has been snubbed. Not listed for the award, not invited to the ceremony next week. And people have noticed. Canada’s leading graphic novelists, Chester Brown and Seth, have written an open letter in support of Jillian’s role. It seems the judges have looked at the literary merit of SKIM’s text in isolation from the illustrations.
We’re guessing that the jury who read SKIM saw it as an illustrated novel. It’s not; it’s a graphic novel. In illustrated novels, the words carry the burden of telling the story, and the illustrations serve as a form of visual reinforcement. But in graphic novels, the words and pictures BOTH tell the story, and there are often sequences (sometimes whole graphic novels) where the images alone convey the narrative. The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text. Try to imagine evaluating SKIM if you couldn’t see the drawings. Jillian’s contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration: she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was.
Tough call for Jillian, and a bittersweet success for Mariko should she win the Children’s Literature category when the awards are announced on Tuesday.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:11 am
[...] as has Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award. The latter has spared itself from criticism by awarding the Children’s Literature - Text prize to John Ibbitsen for The [...]