There are some new entries among the nominations for the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, presenting the usual interesting range of entries. Self-published books, works from new and newish graphic novel arms of big publishing houses, spandex sagas, mopey autobiography, anthologies, manga and manhwa, fact-based, historical, chatty, wordless, highbrow, lowbrow — you name it, it’s there.
Last time I took a look, I predicted that Kazuhiro Oakmoto’s promising Translucent (Dark Horse) would show up before long, and my psychic powers are confirmed. Please ignore the fact that none of my other predictions have yet come to pass and gape in awe at my awesome psychic powers.
And hey, remember Spider-Man: Reign (Marvel), with its full-frontal nudity (later… um… excised) and toxic seminal fluid? It’s nominated, as is the collection of Marvel mega-event Civil War. And before you say, “It’s just a list of nominations,” remember that the defining capes bummer of last year, DC’s Identity Crisis, actually made the top ten in 2007. This would fall under the category of, “Shows what I know about what teens probably actually like.”
