It’s that time of year again! It’s Will Eisner Week! Some of you may be quite familiar with the Eisner Awards which annually awards artists in various categories for their graphic novels. Will Eisner Week is a week-long celebration of the man we attribute to the very existence of the graphic novel. He coined the term “graphic novel” when he wrote A Contract With God in 1978. The term has come to umbrella more than true graphic novels such as comic strip collections, curated collections of comic book issues, and manga, but a true graphic novel is one substantial story that was written to be printed and released all at once instead of a serialized series. It’s similar to the difference between novels and short stories, or even more appropriately, serialized fiction that has a more niche following this day in age. You can find more on the celebration here.

For Eisner Week, we are putting up a display next to the Reference & Information Desk that will include a few copies of Eisner’s works and dozens of other graphic novels to peruse. If you have never tried reading a graphic novel, they are as diverse as print novels, so there should be something for everyone available.