New Gen Graphic Novels & The Supremacy of ‘Big Nate’
New Gen Graphic Novels & The Supremacy of ‘Big Nate’ When I was younger, me and my friends grew up in a time where what I’ll call “new-gen graphic novels” were becoming a phenomenon in the kids’ literature world, where the writing style of children’s books was combined with the in-your-face graphics and humorous presentation of comics. Of course, as far as children’s books in general went, Rhold Dahl would always be the frontrunner, but there were a fair few new kids on the block, with serious appeal in this new style. You got precursors to the trend with things like Jacqueline Wilson’s ‘Tracy Beaker’ books in the early 1990s, but arguably the trend really hit the ground running with the arrival of Dav Pilkey’s ‘Captain Underpants’ in 1997. Speaking from experience, if you were a 7/8/9 year old kid in juniour school reading these, we thought it was the funniest shit imaginable. After all, it was fat, stupid, mean teachers being made to run around in their underwear by two ten year