{"id":1977,"date":"2008-11-12T16:26:58","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T20:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/2008\/11\/12\/skim-graphic-novels-and-the-governor-generals-literary-awards\/"},"modified":"2009-01-01T23:22:51","modified_gmt":"2009-01-02T03:22:51","slug":"skim-graphic-novels-and-the-governor-generals-literary-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=1977","title":{"rendered":"Skim, Graphic Novels, and The Governor General’s Literary Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

So this has been bubbling<\/a><\/strong> under for a little while. The Canadian graphic novel (and Doug Wright Special Award Winner) Skim<\/em> has been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards here in Canada, which is excellent. Unfortunately, however, only Mariko Tamaki has been nominated, as she is the book’s “author” whilst Jillian Tamaki has been ignored as the book’s “illustrator.” Anyone with a functioning understanding of the medium knows that, particularly outside of genre work, the distinction between “writer” and “illustrator” is not nearly so easy to make in the world of graphic novels… Graphic Novels are a medium where both the words and pictures are equally important, and frequently entirely indivisible.<\/p>\n

And so two of Canada’s most prominent graphic novelists have written an open letter to the administrators of the Governor General’s Literary Awards, in the hope of getting co-creator Jillian Tamaki her due in the acclaim for this fine book. Take it away, Seth<\/strong> and Chester Brown<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

November 12, 2008<\/p>\n

As individuals involved in the art form of comics and graphic novels, we are glad to see that a graphic novel has made the short-list for this year’s Governor General’s Literary Awards. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0SKIM (by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki) \u00c2\u00a0is a wonderful book and deserves the attention. \u00c2\u00a0But we’re troubled by the fact that only one of its co-creators is receiving credit for the creation of the book’s text. \u00c2\u00a0We understand that an award-category exists for illustration, but to have nominated Jillian in that category would not have rectified the problem. \u00c2\u00a0Indeed, that would have highlighted how our medium is misunderstood.<\/p>\n

We’re guessing that the jury who read SKIM saw it as an illustrated novel. \u00c2\u00a0It’s not; \u00c2\u00a0it’s a graphic novel. \u00c2\u00a0In 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. \u00c2\u00a0The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text. \u00c2\u00a0Try to imagine evaluating SKIM if you couldn’t see the drawings. \u00c2\u00a0Jillian’s contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration: \u00c2\u00a0she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was.<\/p>\n

In an October 21st article for the CBC website, one of your jurors, Teresa Toten, was interviewed: \u00c2\u00a0“Toten praised SKIM for using the graphic novel format to tell a sophisticated story about what life is like for teenaged girls. \u00c2\u00a0The work is remarkable in part because of how the words and pictures both contribute to the literary quality, she said.” \u00c2\u00a0And that is the point of this letter. \u00c2\u00a0“[T]he words and pictures both contribute to [SKIM’s] literary quality”.<\/p>\n

A new category does not need to be created to properly address the graphic novel. \u00c2\u00a0In fact, it is best to see graphic novels appear in literary awards only when they deserve to compete equally against prose on their literary merit alone.<\/p>\n

In writing this letter, we don’t mean to slight Mariko. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0One of the reasons this collaboration works so well is because she understood how to write for this medium. \u00c2\u00a0But we feel that as things now stand, Jillian is being slighted. We want both of the enormously talented creators of this book to be honoured together for their achievement.<\/p>\n

Yours,<\/p>\n

Chester Brown (Author of Louis Riel<\/em>)
\nSeth (Author of It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken<\/em>)<\/p>\n

NAMES IN SUPPORT OF THIS LETTER
\nLynda Barry (Author of What It Is)
\nPeter Birkemoe (Owner of The Beguiling)
\nDan Clowes (Author of Ghost World)
\nDavid Collier (Author of The Frank Ritza Papers)
\nJulie Doucet (Author of 365 Days)
\nChris Oliveros (Publisher of Drawn and Quarterly)
\nJoe Ollmann (Author of This Will All End in Tears)
\nBryan Lee O’Malley (author of Scott Pilgrim)
\nMichel Rabagliati (Author of Paul Moves Out)
\nArt Spiegelman (Pulitzer Prize winning author of Maus)
\nAdrian Tomine (Author of Shortcomings)
\nChris Ware (Author of Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I imagine this will create something of a stir within staid Canadian literary circles.<\/p>\n

– Christopher
\nEdit: I missed the ‘names in support’ somehow. Sorry!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this has been bubbling under for a little while. The Canadian graphic novel (and Doug Wright Special Award Winner) Skim has been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards here in Canada, which is excellent. Unfortunately, however, only Mariko Tamaki has been nominated, as she is the book’s “author” whilst Jillian Tamaki has been … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Skim, Graphic Novels, and The Governor General’s Literary Awards”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canadian-cartooning","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions\/2082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}