Graphic Novel #1 Kristy's Great Idea

Ah, the graphic novels. I decided that I'm going to do them one at a time, thus stretching one post into four. When I first heard the powers that be had decided to do this, I was curious to see how they'd turn out. Well, they're great. But I didn't find them at any comic book store, and it never occurred to me to go to, say, a bookstore, so I don't own them. Lucky for me, my public library got them and my librarian was kind enough to give me books for which I am twenty years too old.

That said, this post probably won't be as long as my others; the graphic novels follow the books pretty closely. I am, however, sharing my favorite panels with you all. (I apologize for the shadows on a few of them--my scanner doesn't like open paperbacks.) The artist, Raina Telgemeier, did a great job interpreting the books into a visual form. Her website has lots of links, to her own LiveJournal, to a BSC Graphix LJ, her own work, Scholastic. I think on the Scholastic site there's a thing showing the process of going from regular paperback to graphic novel.

I love that the title page is an homage to the original paperback cover:


Behold, the flier the girls come up with at their club planning meeting:

It's not quite what I imagined when I read the book, but that's okay. The baby-block logo is wrong too, the logo Claudia drew up is the same one that's one all the covers. I also have issue with the phone number: any BSC reader worth their salt knows Claudia's number is KL5-3231. What's this 555 stuff? [Just kidding about the salt part. I wasn't sure myself what her number was. I think it might have different in the earliest books.] I didn't think they have the little rippy-tags on the bottom either. Eh, whatever.

Mary Anne's sitting job with Karen and Andrew Brewer. Karen talking away whether she has an audience or not:

Karen actually manages to look five.


Stacey, hearing that Kristy has older brothers:



There are the hand-written notebook entries too:

This is a little condensed from the book entry. I like how the same words are misspelled in both entries.


And the best one. During the fight toward the end of the book when Claudia tells Kristy she's dressed like a little kid, Kristy retorts, "You have sheep barrettes in your hair!" Claudia replies (witheringly), "Sheep are in." Well, the sheep have evolved into rainbows, but the effect is still the same:



Fabulous.