Graphic Novelists Chris Ware And Melanie Gillman On Their Latest Projects : 1A "[Comics are] as close as you can get to looking through another person's eyes," cartoonist Melanie Gillman told us.

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Graphic Novelists Chris Ware And Melanie Gillman On Their Latest Projects

Graphic Novelists Chris Ware And Melanie Gillman On Their Latest Projects

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A sample of graphic novelist Melanie Gillman's latest work. Melanie Gillman hide caption

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Melanie Gillman

A sample of graphic novelist Melanie Gillman's latest work.

Melanie Gillman

Graphic novel sales were up nearly 12 percent in 2018. That's compared to a one percent bump for all book sales.

Many readers are introduced to graphic novels through superhero comic books, but the medium is much larger than that.

To learn more about graphic novels, we spoke with cartoonist Chris Ware. His latest work follows the success of his 2000 graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth.

His new book, Rusty Brown, is set during one day in 1975, in a snow-blanketed Nebraska town. Ware says Brown, the titular character, is the "tiny piece of human grit about which [the characters] involuntarily orbit."

We also spoke with cartoonist Melanie Gillman about their new graphic novel, Stage Dreams. Gillman's book is an Old West story that veers far from the stereotypical cowboy tale. The main characters are a queer Latinx outlaw and a trans runaway.

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