About

How it all began

This database was the result of a yearly effort to create an “Australian comic book” buy list for libraries, due to the creation of an annual library festival called “Comic-Conversation Library Festival (CCV)“. This is a Sydney-based public library festival that celebrates local comics culture with events, exhibitions, and talks across libraries. It was first started by Karen Dwarte of Ashfield (Inner West) library in 2014, and graphic novel and comics events for all ages will be held for two weeks across libraries in Sydney and beyond during the July school holidays.

The aim of CCV is to promote the works of the local comics community and highlight the graphic novel collections held in libraries. For more information on CCV2019 is posted at: http://www.facebook.com/comicconversation2019/

CCV2020 is on hold right now due to COVID19, but the buylist will still come out.

The yearly CCV buylist is available in PDF format, and can be downloaded from here.

Australian Comics and Graphic Novels at Libraries

Australia has a long history of comics publishing. Australian comics were incredibly popular decades ago but those golden days are gone. Nowadays, Australia has a small book market and mainstream publishers only publish a very small number of comics. Fortunately, things are changing. There is renewed interest in comics around the world, sales are booming and we have a generation of great creators publishing excellent work.

Even though, historically, libraries have not been very kind to comics, there has been a big change in the last two decades and they are now, consistently, amongst the highest circulating part of the collection. Considering their popularity, it is a concern that, through no one’s fault, libraries and schools are falling short when it comes to stocking comics and graphic novels by Australian creators with most of them going completely under the radar. Librarians often don’t know what to buy and find it hard to purchase the books through library suppliers. On the other hand, we hear that creators are finding it very hard, if not impossible, to get their comics into libraries and schools. It’s a frustrating situation.

We should and can do better.

At the Australian Library and Information Association we have recently formed a group dedicated to graphic novels and comics (ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics). Our aim is to raise the profile of this medium at libraries; public, school and academic. We see advocacy and promotion of Australian creators as a core part of our mission.

We’ve started some initiatives of our own in this regard. We aim to inform librarians about Australian creators, comics and graphic novels suitable for libraries. We also aim to inform creators of the requirements libraries have for books to be added to our catalogues and the pathways to get their books to library suppliers.

This is a great time for this kind of work because apart from renewed interest and sales worldwide, the Australian curriculum places emphasis in learning visual literacy, which is an essential skill in the 21st century. Comics as a medium works on multiple literacy levels and puts the reader in total control of the pace of decoding the text. Comics have also been shown to result in higher memory retention from the reader. Considering all this, it is clear that comics and graphic novels are great tools for education and for literacy.

Another often forgotten aspect is that libraries and schools can constitute a large number of sales for the creators. If we support local creators by stocking their books at our libraries and schools we will be adding to their total sales numbers. In Australia, creators can also qualify to receive compensation through the Australian Lending Right Scheme and creators can also offer talks and workshops at schools and libraries.

At ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics we are very happy to welcome this database. We believe it will become an invaluable tool for academics, librarians, and educators. We have also supplied information and will collaborate with the creators of this database to ensure that up to date information and resources for creators is available.

In 2010, Kevin Patrick, through the University of Newcastle, published an excellent essay about the issue of graphic novels in Australia that he closed with these words:

Australia was once home to a vibrant, prosperous comic book industry that enjoyed widespread support amongst mainstream audiences. While the medium’s cultural status has fluctuated wildly during the post-war era, there is cause to hope that the present-day vogue for Australian ‘graphic novels’ will rehabilitate comic books – and comics studies – in the eyes of readers and scholars alike.

Kevin Patrick, University of Queensland, 2010

His words still ring true and are also our hope. 

Australia is home to a great range of talent in the comics medium. We have creators working for Marvel and DC producing some of the most successful, best selling superhero comics. We also have outstanding independent creators publishing with U.S. publishers. We have creators producing outstanding junior graphic novels and a great range of talent who are producing independent work that may not be as easy to find but is incredibly rewarding to read.

With the recent increased interest in comics and graphic novels world wide we are in a great position to champion comics and graphic novels from our part of the world. We believe that we’re entering a new exciting era and we look forward to seeing this exciting database grow. 

– Iurgi Urrutia (July 2020)
ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics Convenor
@ALIAGraphic