Graphic

.
.
Today’s interview with Carol Barbee makes it clear that amongst other possibilities for continued Jericho storylines a graphic novel is a highly possible and very exciting prospect for the creators of the show.

I grew up reading a breed of comic books that were simple no matter how you sliced them. They presented the world in black and white despite the brightly colored, well laid out pages. Nuance was forsaken for grand themes of good and evil and it was never hard to tell who you were supposed to root for. Somewhere around the time I was headed off to college the Graphic Novel started to get a foothold. To mix my mediums and metaphors it was like the blues had had a baby and they named it rock and roll. Suddenly, thanks to visionary authors and artists, the comic book had matured with remarkable swiftness. The stories traded their over simplified landscapes for the key’s to dingy apartments and plush lonely mansions. The previously mentioned spaces are still alive in my memory from my first graphic novel experience. I have been thinking about it a lot of late because the movie of roughly the same name has just now hit the theatres. It was called the Dark Knight Returns and it was written and illustrated by Frank Miller and it was out of this world. Miller showed us what could happen if you took stock, archetypal characters and infused them with relentless reality. Miller’s Batman is a tragic hero juxtaposed against a superman who has become a puppet of the American military. More happened in this story on the first page than I was used to getting from an entire comic. The writing did absolutely no pandering; a fact I appreciate to this day. I remember thinking at the time that often the reasons we love things, such as my love of the comic book, is for the potential they hold inside of them. I am really happy that such potential has not been lost on the creators of Jericho.
.